


Half a Bubble Off Plumb

by troubleseason (cats_cradle6766)



Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Bachelor Party, Bad Karaoke, Best Man Duties, Cell Phone Dependency, Complicated History, Crying in Bathroms, DELAYED ENDING!!!, Disrupted Plans, Frustration, M/M, Overworking, Sass, Seokjin with no chill, Stress, Taekook if you squint really hard, Workaholic, beach wedding, drunk people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-05-23 05:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 33,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6106908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cats_cradle6766/pseuds/troubleseason
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seokjin doesn't do coffee, weddings, missed deadlines, impolite staff, regrets, profanity, or relationships.  Appointed best man for his best friend's destination beach wedding means breaking some of those rules.  Then again, some things are better when they're broken, because it's not until something breaks that it can be put back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lotusk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotusk/gifts).



> Dear recipient,
> 
> First of all, [this](https://play.spotify.com/track/5Mw9bXG1dLNhbjofkVS2oR) is for you to listen to while going through all of this~
> 
> My dear recipient, I know this is not what you would have expected, and for that I do apologize, but hope perhaps you can look at this with they eyes of a good thing being spread over a longer time to be enjoyed. Consider this a birthday present that is a slow release for you to enjoy over time :) 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this story. There are a few things I’m not sure if I got to your tastes, but all in all I hope you can simply sit back and enjoy the story. I ended up combining aspects of your prompts to make this, and made a few adaptations to get here. I ended up having a lot of fun playing with them, and hope you have fun reading them too.
> 
> This is set on the island of St. Lucia in the Caribbean. I have no idea if there are actually as many potholes as I wrote there to be. The resort they stay at is based on Ti Kaye (the name has been altered) Resort and Spa with a few alterations. You can find more information about the resort [here](http://www.destinationweddings.com/Destinations/Resorts/tabid/103/agentType/View/PropertyID/868/Default.aspx). The wedding itself is a Western style wedding, as most of the resorts that offer wedding services in the Caribbean are Western styled. 
> 
> With regards to their jobs and homes, they are based in the US primarily because of versatility within the professional world, the music industry, and because my own extension of knowledge doesn’t extend far enough to base it in South Korea. 
> 
> I want to give a huge thank you to those who helped me with this. Firstly, I'd like to give a huge thank you to the mods, who were incredibly patient and kind to me through this whole exchange and I owe them so much. To R who helped me when I was first panicking and never stopped to keep faith in me when I had lost it, right up the very end, thank you my dear friend. I also want to thank F and A for being such a wonderful support, and to my dearest dongseng, who is always there to pick me up and tell me to keep going when I’m stumbling all over. Thank you so much for everything.
> 
> Lastly, if, at any time during the story, you struggle with trying to picture Taehyung and how he operates, please reference [this](https://vine.co/v/eHMHUnMuKit) to avoid confusion.

_“I struggle to find a balance between caring too much and caring too little.”_ – BML, _2Care_. 

 

★☆★

It’s been years since Seokjin had a vacation, eight years to be exact.

The memory of that vacation is probably why Seokjin doesn’t make a significant effort to find time to take another one. Vacations, extended visits home to see the family, and relationships are the primary things that Seokjin doesn’t really see the point of finding time for.

There are more important things he has to do, work for one, staying on top of paperwork, clients, bills, invitation lists, company statistics, and keeping up with the general rushing of life. Things like ‘vacations’ don’t fall under any of those categories.

The last time Seokjin was on vacation, Namjoon had planned the whole thing with a bit of Jackson’s help and Junmyeon’s perfecting advice. It had been right after graduating from university, the whole regular group of friends getting together for one final hurrah before the new graduates vanished into the working world and left the cushion of academics behind. It had been a camping trip, and Seokjin had shared a tent with Hyosang, Yoongi, and Jaehwan. There were twelve people on the trip, and while it seemed a few too many, they had told themselves it would be fine.

At the time, Seokjin should have taken account his other vacations, all which were made with the best intentions and just ended with someone arguing or a falling out somehow. They never go like they’re supposed to, and he’d been foolish to think this one would.

In short, they all went on a camping trip up in the Northern mountains, tents packed and supplies to spend a good weekend in the outdoors.

In short, they stayed in the tents for one night before fog rolled in, before they got lost on the trail up to a peak. They had spent the second night huddled for warmth with Hoseok yelping whenever something scurried over his foot so no one got any sleep. They never found the campsite again, and instead finally found their way back to civilization in the form of McDonnald’s before contacting park rangers to get back to their cars.

No matter how many times Hoseok told Seokjin it was Namjoon’s fault, and despite Namjoon taking the blame years later, it didn’t really matter. Seokjin had enough of ‘vacations’. They weren’t relaxing, they were just a stressful waste of time that required re-acclimating into the normal pace of life.

Seokjin doesn’t go on vacations, doesn’t take breaks or extended weekends for ‘pleasure.’ There is pleasure in work, at his demanding job that he continues to operate even after leaving the office. The greatest satisfaction he gets is knowing a job is well done, a client is pleased, and watching an event go off without a hitch, everything well orchestrated and planned just the way he takes pride in. That’s all there is for him, and he doesn’t need other petty things like exotic trips to ‘relax’ or distractions in the form of other people depending on him who aren’t associated with work.

Perhaps the only exception to this is Namjoon, but considering Namjoon’s health and wellbeing also ensures he’s a competent partner on the job, Seokjin relents that watching out for Namjoon outside of work is a given.

“How are you enjoying your vacation?” Namjoon drawls over the phone. The reception is terrible, crackling in the poor cell service St. Lucia has to offer.

“It’s not a vacation,” Seokjin corrects for the hundredth time since this whole thing came up. It’s not a vacation, and if anything the guise of it being a vacation just makes it worse. It’s a wedding, where he’s got a job to do constantly and is somehow expected to ‘relax’ while doing it, whatever that means.

It actually means taking three days away from the company on an extended weekend trip to be best man at his best friend’s wedding. Not for the first time, as the taxi cab hits another pothole and Seokjin’s head smacks against the roof of the cab, Seokjin grits his teeth and wishes Hyosang had just gotten married in his parents’ yard like they wanted him to.

Of course, Hyosang’s whole perspective had changed after becoming one of the largest film music supervisors where he made more money than Seokjin thought was fair. Of course, that sort of income ensured a wedding in a tropical paradise.

“Sure it is,” Namjoon scoffs, and Seokjin can hear the sound of a wrapper in the background. His own stomach growls. “You’re in the Caribbean, for a fantasy tropical wedding for your best friend on an all expense-“

“Half expense,” Seokjin corrects.

“It’s still a sweet deal,” Namjoon continues, unperturbed. “I’d call that a vacation.”

“Clearly you’ve never been in a wedding,” Seokjin grumbles, and winces as the cab makes another sharp turn. The Dramamine from the flight is wearing off, and he wishes he’d taken another to deal with motion sickness from the car. “Did you ever think about why we never include weddings into the events we’ll plan for? They’re the epitome of stress and people being too emotional to see reason.”

“I dunno, they sound like fun,” Namjoon muses. “Maybe the first wedding you can plan will be mine.”

“Don’t count on it,” Seokjin sighs, and winces as they hit another pothole. “How much longer?” he calls up to the cabby. The response is something in the heavily accented mix of English and native Creole. “Thanks,” Seokjin says dryly, and rolls down a window instead.

“Anyway,” Namjoon continues. “You said you sent the registration list for the Career Forum convention last night?”

“Of course I did, you think I’d leave before sending that?”

“I just can’t find it,” Namjoon answers loftily. “I keep checking my email and-“ the phone crackles, “- so maybe -- again – -esort so I can double check it?”

“I’m losing signal,” Seokjin frowns, leaning to see through the windshield. “I’ll call you when I get to the resort.” Hanging up before Namjoon can crackle more at him, Seokjin leans forwards to the driver again. “Are we close?”

“Close, yes,” the man replies.

‘Close’ translates to another fifteen minutes on a shoddy dirt road before they finally hit pavement. It’s another ten minutes before they get to the resort and Seokjin gets out into the fresh air, stomach roiling, and feeling slightly wobbly behind his sunglasses. The cabby looks sour when Seokjin pays him the fare (which was expensive, in his own opinion) but drives away swiftly as soon as Seokjin gets his bags out of the trunk.

The resort has a little better service, and a simple text to Hyosang is all he needs before checking in. He, Hyosang, Seulgi, and Sooyoung, their wedding planner, had all planned the rooming arrangements for the groomsmen months ago. The benefit of this resort, Ti Kanye, is that it offers comfortably sized rooms that link together with a dividing wall and a door that can be locked or unlocked. It’s a bit similar to a shared home, and Seokjin specifically likes it so he can, if needed, drag the groomsmen out of bed to be on time should they oversleep during crucial moments.

There’s six of them in all, paired appropriately with the six bridesmaids that he’d worked out with Soojung through email months ago. She’d been easy to work with, cooperative and organized, and seems to have a good handle on her bridesmaids, who all seem cooperative.

The groomsmen are proving to be a bit more challenging.

“Donghyuk’s flight was cancelled,” is the first thing Hyosang says, sounding apologetic, when he greets Seokjin in the lobby. “Something about a workers strike in Reykjavik.”

“I don’t even get a hug?” Seokjin asks, raising his eyebrows at his best friend. “I thought you were the excitable one.”

“I just had a ten hour flight from LA, go easy on me,” Hyosang whines slightly. “With a bride who just wrapped up a project and is coming off of two all-nighters and used me as a pillow the whole flight.”

“Poor you,” Seokjin says and smiles when Hyosang throws him a pained and exasperated look. “Why did Donghyuk even need to be in Iceland?” Seokjin sighs, frowning as he hands his bag off to the bellhop.

“He and Yoongi were doing some sort of conference on the health and psychological-“

Seokjin frowns, pausing in the hall. “Is Yoongi also going to be late?” he asks, feeling that skitter of irritation as well organized and constructed plans begin to crumble. “We can’t push back the-“

“No, he’s here,” Hyosang waves off. “Got in an hour ago. Apparently he took a flight a few days earlier than Donghyuk, something about touching base with family before getting here. I think he’s down by the pool, sleeping.”

A thin smile spreads over Seokjin’s lips and he nods, walking after his bellhop and to his room. “Of course he is.”

“You look like you could do with some sleep,” Hyosang comments as they arrive at the room. The paths between the buildings are outdoors, tiled in beautiful rocks and lined with well groomed jungle and gardens. The resort is truly stunning, and as Seokjin registers this latently, he almost regrets not having more time to survey the facility.

“Just some alka-seltzer,” Seokjin says, pausing as they bellhop unlocks his unit and leads them inside. “Then I’ll be good to go. I need to check up on things anyway, make sure everything is all set for tonight.”

“Right,” Hyosang says, then breaks out into a grin. “Can you-“

“No,” Seokjin tells him firmly. “Your bachelor party is _supposed_ to be a surprise, which means you don’t know about it. Plus, I cleared everything with Seulgi, Soojung, and Sooyoung.”

“So no strippers?” Hyosang teases, and then laughs with a yelp when Seokjin reaches out to hit him. “Kidding, kidding! I only want one woman to strip for me. I’m a faithful soon to be husband.”

“Good,” Seokjin says with a raised look before pushing a few bills into the bellhop’s hands. “Are the others here at least? Or is it just going to be you, Yoongi, and myself tonight? I can’t see that party lasting long.”

“Hoseok should be here in a few hours,” Hyosang informs, flopping onto Seokjin’s queen sized bed as Seokjin takes in his room. It’s large, comfortable, the front opening out into a deck with a hammock and a stunning view of the ocean. “Yongguk and Sangdo landed a little after you did. They should be here soon.”

“Good,” Seokjin smiles, stepping out onto the deck and looking out at the resort. It really is gorgeous, the perfect setting for a tropical paradise beach wedding like Hyosang and Seulgi ended up choosing. As Hyosang begins to list off all the great things about the resort, pushing a few times for reactions that might be hints about what they’re doing for the bachelor’s party that night, Seokjin takes note of the rooms, the scenery, and checks his own schedule for today.

When Hyosang leaves, a call from Seulgi pulling him down to the cafe to meet with Sooyoung, Seokjin lingers. It would be easy to call it curiosity when Seokjin tests the door on the deck leading to the other unit. It would be easy to call it shock when he finds it unlocked, and when he finds himself just standing there and staring at the handle of a door opened barely a crack. It would be easy to call it temptation to walk into the other room, Yoongi’s room, and see if he’s unpacked yet.

Before Seokjin can call it anything though, his stomach turns over again, and he steps away to get something for it, knowing his schedule doesn’t have concessions for upset tummies.

Besides, this is what Seokjin wanted anyway. He knows Yoongi, has known him for _years_ , and if there’s one of the groomsmen he’s most worried about oversleeping and snapping Seokjin’s patience, it’s Yoongi. It’s why he chose for Yoongi to be rooming next to him, so he could make sure it wasn’t an issue, so Yoongi couldn’t trip him up.

Again.  
  



	2. Chapter 2

★☆★

The truth is, the camping trip hadn’t really been Namjoon’s idea in the first place, it had been Seokjin’s. If specifics got dragged into it, Seokjin was the inception of the idea overall, and Namjoon and Yoongi had kind of rustled up the idea before Namjoon exploded it into reality.

The whole thing started because Seokjin mentioned that he’d never really been on a proper camping trip that turned out alright. Most camping trips he’d taken with his family had been far and in-between, horribly organized by his uncle and given encouragement from his dad. It usually rained, and the food was awful, and his mom usually complained and they always went home early. It had been a conversation really, when Seokjin had dropped by to visit Yoongi during his final project work and they’d gotten talking. Namjoon had shown up in the middle of Yoongi mentioning how he got it, how his family had never really bothered with camping trips.

Namjoon had proposed a solution, explaining that life was shit and that if they wanted to have memories untainted by the projected images of their parents, they should go on their own camping trip. It had been a half baked plan, one that Seokjin didn’t think would ever get off the ground.

Then Junmyeon got involved, probably the only person able to get anything done like this, and Jackson found out, making up for anyone’s lack of enthusiasm.

“It’ll be good for us,” Yoongi had said, shrugging when Seokjin looked at him for help to shut this whole thing down. He hadn’t elaborated on _how_ it would be good, but Seokjin had trusted him anyway.

Eight years ago.

Eight years is a long time.

Eight months ago, Seokjin had been brought back to look at how long it had been when Hyosang and Seulgi had shown up in New York. They’d asked him to be their best man, well, Hyosang’s best man, and Seokjin, shocked and happy for his best friend, had said yes.

Eight months isn’t eight years, but with everything that’s been going on for the last year, it almost feels it. It doesn’t feel like enough time though, even now, when Seokjin has had eight months to plan for this on top of his usual work. Perhaps it’s because Donghyuk isn’t here, making their numbers uneven, or perhaps it’s because Sangdo and Yongguk were later than Seokjin hoped they would be.

Perhaps it’s because Seokjin had to pick up Hyosang’s gift for the party from in town and hadn’t expected Yoongi to come along after running into him. It might be because, with Yoongi there, it had taken even longer to get the gift. It might be because Yoongi seemed completely oblivious to the time lapse, acting as if nothing was wrong, and kept acting like they had all the time in the world rather than a very rigid schedule.

“We don’t have to be there exactly on time,” Yoongi points out, catching Seokjin at the back of the line. They’ve made it through half of the night, wrapping up the third stop on the bachelor’s party with a rum tour. So far, it’s been a hit, though a time crunching one.

“If we’re late after this, we’ll miss the cabs back to the resort,” Seokjin reminds, stepping away from Yoongi and watching as Yongguk takes down another ‘sample’ of rum. Most of them are all at least four drinks deep, with the exception of Hyosang, who keeps getting fed more from Sandgo.

The drinks hadn’t started until the tour though, the night starting out with the whole group heading up into the mountains for an ATV tour of the jungle before heading back to the main camp on ziplines. It had taken them a bit longer to get through the ziplines than Seokijn thought, but he wasn’t about to just throw a terrified Hoseok off the tree platform down a mountain.

As it is, they’re almost an hour behind schedule, and everyone else has had something to drink and is happy about it. Except Seokjin, who keeps getting texts from Namjoon about a missing document that Jia definitely can’t find and where did Seokjin put it?

“Will that really be the end of the world? Hyosang is having fun, and isn’t that the point?” Yoongi frowns at him, squinting a little. “Just- have a drink or something to calm down.”

“I am calm,” Seokjin says curtly, turning away from Yoongi and deftly plucking the thousand dollar bottle of rum out of Hoseok’s hands. “I’m just making sure this works and everyone has a good time.”

“Including you,” Seokjin thinks he hears Yoongi mutter, but when he turns back, the other man is gone. Instead, he’s over with Yongguk and Hyosang, laughing at the attendanee doing a juggling routine with the bottles.

“I am having a good time,” Seokjin answers anyway, turning away and checking his watch again. They’re supposed to be back at the resort by eight to get dinner and then move to the club and bar area for the booked party and performance he’d set up. It means they should get moving if they want to make their reservation.

The problem with a bunch of almost drunk late twenty somethings at a bachelor party is that trying to transition them is very similar to herding cats. Drugged cats.

“Where did you get that?” Seokjin asks, finally sliding into the second cab beside Hoseok and frowning at the bottle of rum cradled in Hoseok’s arms.

“That’s for me to know and you to worry about,” Hoseok tells him with a very unsettling smile. “I promise I didn’t steal it.”

“Good,” Seokjin says, and nods to the cabby to get them moving.

“But that doesn’t mean someone _else_ didn’t,” Hoseok continues, before leaning into Seokjin’s side as Hyosang, sitting on the other side of him, bursts into laughter.

“Commondeered!” the groom crows. “Borrowed without permission!”

“With no intention of ever giving it back,” Hoseok continues, voice loud in the car and Seokjin winces, noticing the cabby does as well. Just as they round a ridge on the way back to the resort, Seokjin pushing bottles of water into his friends’ hands and trying to ensure they don’t drink more in the car, it starts to rain.

“Is this bad?” Hyosang asks, turning to Seokjin. He’d been given a crown at the Rum tours, and it’s sitting lopsided on his head as he stares at Seokjin with wide worried eyes. The next part of the night was supposed to be dinner outside, and Seokjin smiles through his teeth as best he can.

“No,” he says, pushing calm and positivity as he focuses on his heartbeat. He’s dealt with worse, including feuding families in an international business conference over company heritage rights. Rain isn’t the worst he’s dealt with. “It’s fine.”

They’re a half hour late, and there is no room in the dining room for the group when they arrive, the staff apologetic as Yongguk keeps the groomsmen entertained in the bar. They let Seokjin and the group sit in a sectioned area of the bar while they set up a space in the dining room as soon as another group, another wedding party at their rehearsal dinner, wraps up.

It’s harder to not begin to get worried, watching as the clock ticks on and while the men seem happy enough, Hyosang smiling and laughing and pushing drinks on Seokjin, they’re cutting this close. The next venue will be soon enough, and Seokjin’s nerves, already shot from a compressed work week, long flight, and now tense few hours of bachelor party, are beginning to thin.

When he has a team behind him, organizers and staff to make sure an event goes off without a hitch, it’s easier. Seokjin is running this alone, and while usually the other groomsmen should be more of a help, this particular group-

“You look like you need a drink,” Hoseok says, sidling up to him and holding up something that looks sweet and sticky to drink.

“No, I really don’t,” Seokjin replies, eyes flickering to the staff clearing up the now vacated table from the rehearsal dinner.

“Sure you do,” Hoseok presses, going as far as to raise the glass to Seokjin’s mouth. Seokjin is rescued when one of the staff slips up and he pulls away, leaving Hoseok looking confused and slightly frustrated.

Dinner gets set up quickly, Seokjin finally letting out a breath of relief when everyone is seated and quickly making orders for food. It would have been easier to just give up and let everyone stay in the bar for dinner, but Seokjin knows that area needs to set up for later tonight.

“See?” Hyosang says, seated at the head of the table with a wide smile, Seokjin sitting at his right. “Everything is okie dokie. You just need a little bit of faith-“

“And rum!” Sangdo calls from down the table, and even Seokjin finds himself joining in, letting some of the familiar tense thrum of adrenalin he carries with his job go as-

There’s a loud gasp, and Seokjin’s laugh turns into a yell as something hot, heavy, and _wet_ suddenly cascades _directly_ into his lap. Jerking away from the table, chair screeching over the stone floor, a metal serving tray clangs to the floor and Seokjin’s lap burns hot from the spilled food. The unmistakable yell of “wow!” in Hoseok’s voice sounds just as Seokjin is stumbling from his seat, trying to shake off bits of vegetable and meat and sauce from his lap, hissing at the heat and wet uncomfortable stick of fabric to his skin.

“Oops,” says a low voice Seokjin doesn’t know, and he looks up, feeling hot anger flare in his chest to see-

A smile.

“Excuse me?” Seokjin says, deaf to the garbled speech and muted laughter at the table behind him as he stares at the young man in a waiter’s uniform.

“That was supposed to go on the table, but your lap caught it pretty well,” the guy says, and _smiles_ , like this is _funny_. “My bad.”

“ _Excuse me?_ ” Seokjin repeats, feeling his jaw begin to lock as he feels his temper rise, bubbling up from the bottom of his gut, burning through the taut nerves that have been pulled tense for hours. The tension spreads just as his anger rises, his teeth clenching because this-

“I said ‘my bad’,” the waiter says, and shrugs. “But, you know, accidents happen, right? This is nothing that laundry services can’t fix. Plus, you’re wearing black pants, it’s not like anyone-“

“Shut up,” Seokjin’s voice is tight, dark, and furious, just like the rest of him. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Telling you about laundry? They’re just pants, I’m sure you have more of them.”

The pot boils over on Seokjin’s theoretical internal stove. “What is your problem?” Seokjin yells. Seokjin never yells, not when he can help it, but sometimes there are exceptions. And right now is a _glaring_ exception. “You just threw food on me and can’t even find the decency to _apologize?_ ”

“Seokjin-“

“Who do you think you are?” Seokjin snaps, and the guy just _stands_ there, staring at him with these big brown eyes and a slightly shocked expression, like _Seokjin_ is the one in the wrong.

“Last I knew, I was Taehyung Kim,” the waiter says, and points to his nametag. “Who are you?”

Letting out a snarl, Seokjin reaches for the little jerk of a waiter only to have something heavy slam into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Gasping and coughing, Seokjin stumbles back, reaching for whatever is holding him firmly around the waist and chokes.

“Excuse us for a second,” says a calm familiar voice, edged with irritation and rum as Seokjin is firmly turned around and pushed away.

“No,” Seokjin snaps, turning in Yoongi’s grip to glare at him and catching sight of the waiter stepping back as Hoseok stands up at the table. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you to your room, dumbass,” Yoongi says with a firm shove to his back, managing to keep Seokjin moving. “Now just-“

“Like Hell you are,” Seokjin snaps, anger flaring again. This is ridiculous, completely uncalled for, and he’s not about to just-

“Shut up,” Yoongi says firmly, yanking Seokjin to the side behind one of the pillars in the dining room and shoving him against it. “So a fucking waiter spilled food on you, so fucking what?”

“He didn’t even-“

“I don’t give a damn,” Yoongi cuts off Seokjin’s temper. “This is Hyosang’s night, and you throwing a bitch fit about some waiter isn’t really keeping with the mood. It was an accident, laugh it off.”

“You want me to just laugh this off?” Seokjin, ironically, laughs derisively. “You weren’t the one who just had an entrée dumped into their lap. You’re not the one-“

“You’re right, I just saw it happen. Too bad, so sad, move on,” Yoongi says, and steps back, casting Seokjin’s pants a grimace. “Whatever, be mad, but just not here. Do you really want Hyosang to remember his bachelor party as the night his best man threw a tantrum?”

“I’m not throwing a tantrum,” Seokjin protests, but keeps his voice down. It’s a different sort of anger, the kind where Seokjin feels like he’s being ignored, his voice shoved back down his throat, where his problems mean nothing. Where he doesn’t matter.

“You can be pissed all you want in your room later,” Yoongi says. “Complain to the manager or whatever. I don’t care. Just don’t do it here; now.”

It reminds him of the last few years, where gradually, even if Seokjin still sees Yoongi every now and then, if they keep in contact and he, Namjoon, and Seokijn go out for dinner, it’s different.

“Fine,” Seokjin says, the fire gone from his voice but the zip of irritation still under his skin as he looks at Yoongi.

“You gonna be okay, Princess, or do you need me walk you back to your room to change pants?” Yoongi asks, stepping back and finally giving him air.

“Don’t call me that,” Seokjin says automatically, frowning. Yoongi’s eyes flicker, but then he looks away, and says nothing.

The staff has cleaned up the area when Seokjin gets back, a pair of shorts on and face clean, washed to calm himself down. The food is half gone, and Hoseok has taken his seat next to Hyosang, keeping most of the table running on high and laughing. Yoongi doesn’t look at him when he gets back and sits beside Sangdo.

“Can I get you anything, sir?” a waiter, a different one, asks him with a polite bow.

“I need a drink,” Seokjin tells him, looking around and feeling tired and determined at the same time. “A really strong drink.”

“You okay?” Yongguk asks as Seokjin takes the nearest plate of food and serves himself a hasty portion.

“Fine,” Seokjin says, and feels his smile tighten when he flashes it at the other man. “Just way too sober for this.”

“I hear you,” Sangdo laughs, and passes him a drink. Seokjin downs it in one go, ignoring the glance from Yoongi across the table.

It’ll be fine. Seokjin is fine. They’re still on schedule, mostly. Besides, no one seems to care about that aside from Seokjin at this point.  
  



	3. Chapter 3

★☆★

The great thing about being not sober is everything. Mostly because everything is a lot more everything and that’s kind of fantastic in and of itself.

They’d made it through dinner, and while it was a difficult challenge to catch up after being hours behind everyone else with drinks, Seokjin considers that he did a darn good job of it. Hoseok had helped, because Hoseok is helpful like that. A good friend in times of need, ever willing to order Seokjin an actual full glass of rum, decorated with a pink umbrella, Seokjin’s favorite color.

Seokjin never knew he liked rum so much, but perhaps that’s just one of the perks of being in its homeland.

After dinner came a transition, which is a fancy way of saying moving from one place to another place. They moved into the bar, which was transformed into a lounge. The staff had done a great job, making sure they had enough room, enough food, and, of course, more drinks.

Of course.

While Seokjin has been to a lot of events with a lot of performances by people, special organized shows, and lots of fancy crap, this place did a good job. Seokjin might be biased, but one of the guys in part of the performance danced with fire, and it was pretty impressive. Seokjin, for one, was impressed, knowing he couldn’t breathe fire or juggle it.

Seokjin isn’t good enough with his hands. It’s why he’d never become a craftsman. There were other reasons, but he forgot them. They probably weren’t important actually.

After the fire man, who Hyosang also seemed to think was awesome, they had a few other shows, and then the best part: open mic. Seokjin is particularly proud of himself for arranging that one, getting a karaoke system set up and everything.

“You’ve already gone three times,” Hoseok is laughing, holding onto Seokjin’s arm when he tries to get up for a new song.

“But I’m good at it,” Seokjin protests, letting Hoseok pull him back into his seat and watching as Hyosang takes the stage instead. He’s got on a new fancy hat. It’s very silly. Seokjin giggles.

“I know, but Hyosang is supposed to sing the most,” Hoseok says, and pats Seokjin on the top of the head. “You can go steal the spotlight when you get married to someone.”

“No,” Seokjin pouts, sitting up a bit straighter. “Not gonna happen.”

“Bull shit, you’re a mic hog,” Hoseok scoffs.

“No, I’m not getting married,” Seokjin says firmly.

“Right, I forgot you’re married to your work,” Hoseok answers. “I would say ‘and Namjoon’ but he and Sunyoung are kind of the new ‘it’ couple so that doesn’t work.”

“I wouldn’t marry Namjoon anyway,” Seokjin tells him, frowning.

“What about me?” Hoseok asks, grinning suggestively.

“You wish,” Seokjin laughs, and reaches for another drink. There are a few on the table, making a colorful collage as Hyosang drags on a ballad about… love, or whatever. All the songs are the same.

“Not really, you’re kind of high maintenance,” Hoseok tells him.

“Excuse me?” Seokjin says, caught and turning to fix Hoseok with a _look_.

“Chill, man, I’m teasing,” Hoseok laughs, but it leaves Seokjin feeling a bit numb.

It’s not that Seokjin is high maintenance, in fact usually quite the opposite. Seokjin takes care of _everything_ , making it easy for another person. That’s also one of the reasons Seokjin doesn’t want to bother with the whole thing though, because it ends up just being him taking care of another person, another set of worries, another thing he has on his schedule, his list of responsibilities, and things to take care of.

There is enough for him to do already, he doesn’t need to be worrying about another person depending on him, taking up his time, his energy, and that he has to worry about. Relationships are exhausting, a financial commitment, an emotional drain, and Seokjin just doesn’t have the time or energy for them.

For some people, like Hyosang and Namjoon, they make the time for them. Hyosang actually has the time for them, his fiancé also just as driven in her job, so it’s not a big issue that they don’t have tons of time together. For Namjoon, he makes the time, but Seokjin often watches the negative points, the falls in the relationship when something is forgotten that was ‘important’ or ‘special’. Big ‘details’ that really aren’t that important.

Seokjin isn’t high maintenance, his jobs are, and while they do end up taking up a big part of his life-

Something buzzes in his pocket, and Seokjin lets out a whine as he digs for his phone…

Which isn’t there. Instead, it’s Hoseok’s phone against his leg, with Donghyuk’s name flashing on the screen.

“Where are you?” Seokjin answers, frowning at the missing member of the groomsmen. “You were supposed to be here.”

“Seokjin?” It’s hard to hear Donghyuk over Hyosang’s screamo version of ‘ _My Heart Will Go On_ ’. “I thought I called Hoseok.”

“You did,” Seokjin tells him, sagging back into the couch as Hoseok screams on Hyosang beside him. “I’m his secretary right now. He’s official cheerleader for the groom you’re _not_ here for.”

“Wow, who knew the Caribbean would make you so salty,” Donghyuk drawls. “Can you put him on, or are you screening his calls too?”

“When he’s done screaming,” Seokjin sighs. “Did you get a new flight yet?”

“Working on it,” Donghyuk says, and Seokjin frowns, wincing as the sound from the speakers pounds against his head. Plugging one ear, he closes his eyes, trying to focus on Donghyuk.

“What?”

“Working on it!” Donghyuk repeats, louder, into the phone. “Where are you?”

“Drunk,” Seokjin answers.

“Who is that?” Someone is pulling on the hand Seokjin is using to plug his ear, and he scowls, pulling away.

“I’m on an important business call,” Seokjin says sternly.

“I wasn’t aware we were professionally engaged,” Donghyuk snorts over the line. It sounds like he’s speaking through angry tin foil. Or aluminum foil.

Wait.

“Hey, is that my phone?”

“It’s your turn to sing,” says the person trying to take Seokjin’s hands away from him, which is rude. They’re his hands, his birth right appendages and _important_ to him. “Go before Hyosang can start trying to put on Nicki Minaj. We both know he doesn’t have the range for Super Bass.”

“Super Bass is _my_ song,” Hoseok shouts directly into Seokjin’s ear and deafens him forever.

“Stop, you can’t have my hands,” Seokjin yells, leaning sideways on the couch and trying to use his dead drunk weight to his advantage. “They won’t come off if you pull on them, I’ve tried.”

“Jesus, how much have you had to drink?”

“I’m not Jesus,” Seokjin corrects, and finds his hands have been given freedom. He keeps them up, limp in front of him, ready for action, just in case. He frowns. “I was on the phone.”

“And now you’re not, look at that,” says the voice, and Seokjin catches a smile, mostly straight and small white teeth, a lot of gums and-

“You know, pink is my favorite color,” Seokjin says, reaching up to pet Yoongi’s strawberry something colored hair. It looks soft, and Seokjin can just see the roots beginning to come in. As a matter of fact, it is soft, and Yoongi doesn’t stop Seokjin from running his fingers through it.

“I know,” Yoongi says, and finally reaches up to catch Seokjin’s hand. There’s something about his mouth, kind of like a smile but not yet a smile, like a smile that’s hiding from him. It’s not fair. Seokjin likes Yoongi’s smile, has always liked Yoongi’s smile, for years and years, back when they’d first met and Yoongi had been so hesitant to share it.

Back then, Seokjin felt like it was his, a special part of Yoongi reserved just for him, that Yoongi felt safe sharing with him. That never really changed either, because somehow, whenever things got hard for either of them, a part of that smile would come back, sometimes weak and sometimes almost broken, but still _there_.

Seokjin misses it, misses the smile, the laugh, the way Yoongi used to go par for par with him, how things used to be before things just got harder, before it felt like there was something else.

Something like an ocean in the space between smiles, where Seokjin felt like he was manning a ship all by himself.

The feeling of water all around him, sloshing between his ears smelling of rum and strawberries.

“What happened?” Seokjin asks, frowning as he lets his hand hang limply in Yoongi’s grasp.

“My guess is that you got into a drinking match with Hyosang,” Yoongi says, and lets go. “Which never ends well.”

“Don’t be so smart,” Seokjin says, frowning.

“I can’t help it, I’m just a born genius,” Yoongi says, and then smiles, _smiles_ at him and Seokjin-

Seokjin wants to cry. It’s been _years_ since Seokjin has cried, at least not intentionally (or at those sad movies Jaehwan sends him), and yet he can feel the unmistakable burn of unshed tears in his eyes, behind them, rising up his throat in an ache. Seokjin hates crying, mostly because it accomplishes nothing except a wet face and a hoarse voice, but that doesn’t mean he can stop it.

“Shit,” Yoongi is saying, and pulling away. “Seokjin- shit, here.” A bottle of water is pushed into his hands, and Seokjin gulps it down. “You couldn’t hold your alcohol for one night.”

“I’m not that drink,” Seokjin says, then frowns. “Drunk.” Beside him, out of sight, he hears Yoongi snort a laugh.

“Keep drinking that water,” he says, and falls silent as Seokjin nurses the water.

“Is this filtered water or am I gonna get parasites?”

“Just drink it,” Yoongi sighs, though it doesn’t sound mad. Seokjin doesn’t look up to see if he’s smiling, not wanting to be thrown again. “And sober up so we can get back to your best friend’s bachelor party.”

Shit.

“Shit.” Seokjin glances up. Hyosang and Yongguk are rap battling on the karaoke machine while Hoseok has the tambourine. It’s supposed to be a party for all of them, and Seokjin should be up there with the tambourine, not Hoseok. He shouldn’t be sitting back here, trying not to cry for absolutely no reason.

“Yeah,” Yoongi says. “But I’m pretty sure Hyosang is too drunk to remember this part. It’s just a good thing we gave him his groom’s gift earlier.”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Seokjin mutters into his water, taking another sip. “This is worse than when that punk poured chowder on me.”

“It was just a pair of pants,” Yoongi says, and Seokjin bristles.

“He didn’t even apologize! I was supposed to wear those pants the rest of the week! I’m just glad I packed extra clothing and a spare pair of shorts just in case.”

“You packed for an extra three days didn’t you,” Yoongi muses, and that hint of a smile is back, teasing, taunting, not quite there but just. “How many pairs of underpants did you pack?”

“Seven,” Seokjin sulks with a glower. “At least I’m prepared in case something goes wrong. I bet you only packed one pair of pants.”

“And my tux,” Yoongi confirms with a nod. “But I’m glad to know if I had been the one that got a lap full of soup, I could ask you for extra shorts.”

“If things had gone according to plan, no one would have had a joke waiter dump food on them,” Seokjin says tersely.

“Not everything goes to your finely tuned schedules and plans, Seokjin.”

“Shut up,” Seokjin fires back. “Just because you don’t care enough to take care of things like this, or people, or-“ Seokjin coughs against the ache in his throat “-not everyone can get by with being lazy.”

“Thanks,” Yoongi says dryly. “Is that it?”

Seokjin doesn’t answer for a while, just watching the rap battle turn into a very strange cabaret version of the YMCA. “No,” Seokjin finally says, and closes his eyes, feeling the sudden rush in his head, louder between his ears, tilting him to the side dramatically as the ocean tides change. 

“I’m listening.”

The rushing rises to a roar and Seokjin feels his ship go under the waves, drowning just as he feels a hand rest gently against his back.  
  



	4. Chapter 4

★☆★

The first thing Seokjin notices is that he’s in a bed. It smells clean at least, though Seokjin has no memory of getting into it, or how he got there.

The second thing Seokjin notices is that he’s only wearing half of his pajamas, which isn’t normal, but before he can contemplate on that the pain hits. There’s a lot of it, and it brings with it nausea, aching, and the horrific sticky mouth feeling that immediately gives Seokjin enough information to understand what happened.

Seokjin got extremely drunk.

It’s rare these days that Seokjin actually drinks, usually reserving it to one or two drinks, staying away from sugary drinks and mixing alcohol. Typically, his schedule would never allow for him to drink and wake up like this.

Technically, his schedule here doesn’t really allow for this either, but it had been Hyosang’s bachelor party, and while Seokjin only has fragments from the night before in his head, he’s sure Hyosang has less. It’s basically how a bachelor party works though, and Seokjin is pretty sure if he made it back to his own bed and mostly in sleepwear, so did everyone else.

Just to be sure though, Seokjin drags himself up, wincing through his pounding head, and begins the hunt for his phone. He’d realized at some point last night that he’d left it in his room after having to change during dinner. Finally finding it only shows it to be dead, which has Seokjin letting out a sigh, knowing that means texts and calls had driven the battery down.

After plugging it in and taking down a few pills with a bottle of water (two had been left on his dressing table), Seokjin does the next best thing he can to texting all the groomsmen.

The response to Seokjin’s gentle knock on the divider of their rooms is that Yoongi lets out a loud slew of swears.

“Good to know you made it back in one piece,” Seokjin calls over to him from the divider on their decks.

“Fuck off,” or at least that’s what Seokjin thinks Yoongi growls at him. Glancing at the clock, Seokjin frowns. There’s a good chance they made it back before it got too late, probably before one in the morning, and it’s already past nine. Seokjin would usually be up hours ago, and most likely it was his internal clock that woke him up.

“You have to get up sooner or later, and breakfast would be-“ There’s a loud thud against the wall between their rooms, earning a scowl from Seokjin. “I’m coming over.”

Yoongi’s room is a mirror image of Seokjin’s, and while it feels a bit intrusive to be there, Seokjin pushes that to the back of his mind. Yoongi is an enormous lump in the bed, wrapped up in his blankets. The small suitcase he’d packed is open on the dressing table, his tux hanging from the back of one of the doors, and everything else is scattered about in little piles.

“Good morning,” Seokjin tells the Yoongi lump and gets silence in return. “I’ve got painkillers and an antacid on the dressing table with water but-“ Seokjin pauses, catching sight of two water bottles by the side of Yoongi’s bed, one empty. They’re identical to the ones in Seokjin’s room.

“Did you-“

“Oh my God, go away,” the lump suddenly explodes and Yoongi’s head emerges to glare at him through eyes swollen with sleep. “Torment someone else with your nagging.”

“We have to be up soon anyway,” Seokjin points out, frowning. It’s not like he’s not suffering too, they’re probably all suffering from hangovers, but then, Yoongi was always a grumpy piece of work in the morning. Always had been.

“I’ll see you later,” Seokjin says, dropping it and walking from the room. As he closes the door, he catches sight of what looks like a small guitar sitting beside the dressing table

Everyone else had made it back just fine from the party last night, and every one sports hangovers just like him. Hoseok answers the door for himself and thanks Seokjin, accepting his invitation for breakfast. Yongguk answers looking horrible, and takes the waters and meds for Sangdo with a weak smile, explaining that the other man wasn’t ‘doing so hot.’

“See you at breakfast?” Seokjin asks.

“Probably not,” Yongguk sighs, voice sounding even lower than usual, which Seokjin hadn’t thought possible. “Lunch maybe, but food doesn’t sound good at all right now.”

Back in his own room, Seokjin finds his phone charged enough to check, and sighs immediately before dialing Namjoon.

“What happened?”

“I feel like I should be the one asking that,” Namjoon says, sounding impressed. “I thought you died.”

“No, I had a bachelor’s party to supervise, and then-“ Seokjin grits his teeth and swallows. “I misplaced my phone.”

“For you, that sounds like an actual tragedy.”

“Shut up and tell me what’s going on,” Seokjin says, not having the patience for Namjoon’s sass.

“You’re hungover aren’t you?”

“ _Namjoon_ ,” Seokjin says, voice low and warning.

“Okay so,” Namjoon begins. “Remember that document Jia said she couldn’t find? We found it. But it turns out that all of the numbers are wrong, and the Career Forum just contacted us that they have another three hundred people coming that aren’t on the list.”

“Shoot,” Seokjin sighs, running his hand over his face. “It’s okay, we can fix this. Just have the Career Forum people send me their lists again and I’ll see what happened.”

“I didn’t call you to tell you to do it,” Namjoon says, and sounds almost tentative. “I called because they kept calling you and me and I wanted to tell you I was taking care of it and-“

“You have the Film Festival to organize,” Seokjin cuts Namjoon off, frowning as he starts to pace around his room. “The Career Forum isn’t your top priority, it’s mine.”

“But I’m also your partner for most of these projects,” Namjoon says firmly. “And you’re away this weekend so it only makes sense that-“

“I can work remotely,” Seokjin interrupts, another zip of irritation under his skin. “This isn’t something we can’t fix easily. It’ll take me a few hours, tops.”

“Seokjin-“

“Are you actually working right now?”

Turning, Seokjin sees Yoongi standing at the opened door between their rooms, frowning at him. His hair is sticking up everywhere, and he’s just in a tee-shirt and boxers, bare feet against the floor as he scowls at Seokjin. “I thought you were still sleeping.”

“I can’t believe you’re still working,” Yoongi scoffs and then shakes his head. “Does Hyosang know?”

“Seokjin, just let me take care of the Career Forum issue,” Namjoon says, and Seokjin’s frown deepens as he turns away from Yoongi.

“You’re supposed to be visiting venues for the National Philosophers Association Gala today,” Seokjin says, ignoring Yoongi as he returns to pacing around the room. His head is beginning to pound. “Not sorting through invitation lists for the Career Forum. Email me the list.”

“You just said it’ll take a few hours tops, I can check the venue and do the lists today,” Namjoon argues.

“Seokjin, hang up the phone.”

“This isn’t your business,” Seokjin says curtly, turning to Yoongi sharply as he rounds the bed.

“Like Hell it isn’t,” Namjoon protests. “Seokjin, we-“

“I was talking to Yoongi, not you,” Seokjin clarifies quickly.

“Yoongi?” Namjoon pauses, and Seokjin stops pacing, eyes closed, and just breathes. He doesn’t need this. “Where are you?”

“In my room, where else would I be?”

“Why is Yoongi in your room with you?” There’s a brief pause, and Seokjin grimaces as he _knows_ what Namjoon is- “Holy shit!”

“No,” Seokjin says firmly, and quickly pulls the phone away from his ear, hanging up. Opening his eyes, Seokjin finds his room empty, Yoongi gone, the only sign of him there in the door that connects their room, left slightly ajar. Seokjin’s head throbs, and he lets out another sigh, running his hands through his hair and grimacing at the feel.

A shower, and then he can tackle this mess and try to get today under control.  
  



	5. Chapter 5

★☆★

Breakfast is mostly a buffet, spread out in hot serving pans along the dining hall with complimentary coffee and tea and a mimosa. Hoseok gives the suggestion a soft whimper before pouring himself another cup of coffee. The food helps, as do the painkillers, and Seokjin spends most of breakfast getting a recount of the night before from Hoseok in snippets of what he can remember. Between the two of them, he finds out that it was Hoseok and Yoongi that got everyone home, Hyosang was completely trashed, but so was Seulgi when the bridesmaids dropped her off.

According to Soojung, everything is fine and they’d done a great job.

“One thing I know,” Hoseok says around a mouthful of pancakes. “Is that it was a night to remember, even if none of us really remember it.”

“I get the feeling that that’s probably a good thing,” Seokjin says with a half smile, raising his water to his lips. “At least there’s not a lot of pictures of the last part of the night.”

“Just the starting stuff, the important stuff to remember,” Hoseok grins. “By the way, I’ll never forgive you for making me go on a zip line, just so you know.”

“I arranged that activity for Hyosang, not you,” Seokjin reminds. “Any scarring you sustained emotionally is just a casualty. Plus, you’re scared of everything.”

“I’m not scared of puppies,” Hoseok says defiantly.

“Yes you are,” Seokjin reminds. “Remember that one time when Jongin-“

“That doesn’t count, Chanyeol isn’t a dog, he’s a monster,” Hoseok says darkly, hunkering over his breakfast plate like the great Pyrenees is going to suddenly bound out to tackle him. Again.

“Chanyeol is the nicest dog on the planet,” Seokjin laughs, and taps the back of Hoseok’s hand with a knife. “He’d sooner hurt you than hurt Jongin. I’ve never seen a dog look so sad and apologetic as when Jongin once teased him that he caused the power to go out instead of a tree down on power lines.”

“Yeah, well, Jongin’s a conditional jerk,” Hoseok mumbles before taking another bite of pancakes. “Remember that time he swapped my dance classes on me and Taemin?”

“You wouldn’t stop complaining for three weeks, so yes, I remember,” Seokjin muses. “And you’re still complaining about it.”

“It was a terrible event!” Hoseok protests just as Seokjin’s phone vibrates on the table. It’s been doing that most of breakfast, updates from Namjoon, answering questions Seokjin keeps firing at him. There’s also a slow trickle in of updates from the other groomsmen, some from Sooyoung about the plans for the weddings, pick up schedules for the guests arriving at the airport today, and a few key smashes from Hyosang.

“You’re eating,” Hoseok says as Seokjin reaches for his phone. “I read that answering calls during a meal is bad for digestion.”

“Whatever you read is wrong,” Seokjin says, and answers the call.

“I sent you the files,” Namjoon says immediately. “I already did half of them, but just got a call from the head of the NPA and they want to look at two venues, so I couldn’t finish.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Seokjin says, ignoring Hoseok’s pulled faces at him. “Let me know which venue they choose and email me with any changes or issues that might come up with the Career Forum. I couldn’t understand any of the voice messages they left me; they were all in Japanese.”

“You know this is rude, right?” Hoseok points out, talking with his mouth full of pancake.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, it’s disgusting,” Seokjin retorts, hitting him gently on the back of the hand with a spoon.

“I thought you didn’t want me to do anything with the CF people,” Namjoon says, a hint of sass in his tone.

“Fine,” Seokjin says, standing to walk away from Hoseok’s stare and attempts to grab his cell phone away from him. “I’ll email them and ask them to have one of their interpreters communicate with me. Or just ask them to write to me instead of call, considering-“

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Namjoon sighs. “I’ll contact them and take care of it. I keep forgetting that your _keigo_ isn’t that great.”

“Excuse me for not having enough time to master Japanese in my spare time,” Seokjin says dryly, striding out to the outdoor area of the restaurant. He pauses, catching sight of the waiter, the one who spilled stuff on him from the night before, talking with a few patrons.

Of all the things from the night before, he wishes that he’d been able to forget that, but the burn of irritation is back, watching as the waiter laughs at something the customer is saying. He doesn’t hold himself right, and nothing about his posture or behavior indicates professionalism.

If he’d been part of Seokjin’s staff, he’d have been removed immediately, and perhaps that’s why Seokjin is so irritated. After the incident last night, Seokjin, or any high class establishment like this resort, would have fired someone like that.

“Who pissed in your orange juice?” Namjoon asks as Seokjin makes to turn away from the patio, freezing a moment later when something else catches his eye.

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin says automatically, feeling the muscles in his jaw tighten as he watches the waiter approach a single patron sitting at one of the smaller tables. Why it bothers him to see that Yoongi actually made it down and _didn’t_ join Hoseok and himself for breakfast is probably attributed to the irritability from being hungover.

But watching Yoongi smile and laugh with the lazy waiter, if anything, makes him even more irritated. The waiter should have returned to the kitchens, delivered the order from the previous table, and instead-

“Are you really?” Namjoon asks. “Or are you just using that automated mediating organizer voice you use on all the clients? It’s harder to tell on speakerphone.”

Seokjin pauses, the words sinking into him and he frowns, watching as the waiter neglects to fill Yoongi’s water glass. Unprofessional. Lazy. “You’re driving,” Seokjin says. There’s only one time Namjoon bothers with speakerphone, still too scared to hook up his car’s Bluetooth system in case he breaks it.

“Hands free and safe,” Namjoon says, as if that makes it any better. “Look, I can’t stand those ear pieces you wear, and don’t act like you’re any better taking calls when you drive. Just because you have a plug in your ear doesn’t make it any less safe.”

“Call me when you’re off the road,” Seokjin sighs, closing his eyes and turning away. Namjoon is distractible at best, and while it makes him one of the best multitaskers Seokjin has ever worked with, it makes him extremely unsafe in normal daily situations. Like driving, where he often forgets he shouldn’t do three things at once.

“Give me your phone,” Hoseok says as soon as Seokjin sits back down.

“No,” Seokjin says easily, and smiles at him. “I need it to get calls from guests as they arrive and to keep up with the wedding planner and Soojung.”

“Fine, give me your phone and I’ll give it back when they contact you,” Hoseok says simply, hand still held out for the phone.

“Don’t treat me like a child, I’m older than you,” Seokjin tells him, finally returning to his half eaten breakfast. “I’m keeping my phone, so-“ Hoseok’s phone vibrates on the table just as Seokjin’s does in his pocket. “For things like this.” He smirks as Hoseok rolls his eyes, but reaches for his own phone none the less.

  


**Hyosang – 9:57 :** _Good morning, Gents! Hyosang is still out of commission (good job last night, whatever you did) and will be taking the morning off. However, there’s tons to do today, so please take some time to explore the activities the resort has to offer (I’ll be windsurfing if anyone wants to join me) and have fun! Dinner is at 6. We’ll be on the beach. – the almost wife_

  


“I love Seulgi and all that, but there’s no way I’m going windsurfing,” Hoseok says, looking a bit ill as he puts down his phone. Seokjin smiles as his phone vibrates again.

  


**Hyosang – 9:58 :** _Morning! So, Donghyuk is still stuck in Reykjavik, but we’ve got a few other guests coming in today, about ten family? Mostly cousins and Hyosang’s aunt and uncle. I told Soojung it’s up to you two to keep tabs on the wedding party :) Call me if you need anything – Seulgi, the almost wife_

  


“Phone,” Hoseok says pointedly, hand once more open and expectant.

“It’s Seulgi, not work,” Seokjin says, frowning at him. “I have some other stuff to take care of today. Best man duties.”

“Well, aren’t you special,” Hoseok simpers.

“Actually, yes, I am,” Seokjin says before taking a long sip of tea. 

By ten thirty, most everyone is up and alive from the night before, and Seokjin has managed to get a good list of things to do around the resort and on the island, some compiled from his initial ideas for the bachelor party. The men, sans Hyosang, all end up gathered in Seokjin’s room as he fills them in on what they can do for the day before setting them free.

Yoongi is the only one left lingering, and Seokjin pauses as he begins to pack up to head into town and take care of some of the wedding details. “What are you doing today?”

“Dunno,” Yoongi says, leaning back on Seokjin’s bed. “Probably just hang out by the beach.”

“Seriously?” Seokjin asks, pausing in the middle of pulling his laptop out of his bag. “I just gave a list of at least twenty things to do and you’re-“

“So?”

“It just feels like such a waste of your time here to spend the whole trip doing nothing,” Seokjin says, setting up his computer. He has about an hour before he needs to be in town, but being packed for that gives him time to get the Career Forum details in order.

“But it’s not a waste of a perfectly good vacation to spend it working,” Yoongi says from the bed and Seokjin turns to him sharply, frowning.

“At least I’m not wasting my time laying around.”

“I can go lay around in my own room if this is bothering you,” Yoongi says, lifting his head to give Seokjin a raised look. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

“Isn’t there _something_ you care about enough to want to do here?” Seokijn asks, turning back to his computer as it wakes up. “I just gave a list of twenty things to do and not even one of them-“

“Why does it matter if I do something or not to you?”

Seokjin presses his mouth into a thin line, eyes on the computer screen as it refreshes his emails to show new letters from the staff at the Career Forum and a few updates from Namjoon and Jia. “It doesn’t,” Seokjin says flatly.

For a while, Seokjin works, silence stretching longer and longer as he focuses on work and ignores the world around him. It’s easier to answer the emails from his clients when they’re written, his reading ability for Japanese much better than listening to it over the phone or on voice messages. While he’s still not up to par on his formal language, he can at least get by answering their questions and clearing up the mess with the registration numbers.

It’s as he’s sending off the last of the emails and responding to some of Namjoon’s texts that the first few notes of music drift through the air. Turning, slightly startled, Seokjin looks around the room to find it empty aside from himself. The door on the deck is closed, but he can definitely hear what sounds like a mix between a guitar and ukulele from close by.

Setting down his phone, Seokjin walks out to the deck, the breeze from the ocean playing against his skin. The sound of the instrument gets a bit louder as he walks out to the open air, and his suspicion is confirmed that it’s coming from next door; from Yoongi’s room. It’s not a specific song, more like the sound of Yoongi just playing around with the instrument, a mindless melody that has nowhere to go and wanders pleasantly.

Closing his eyes, Seokjin breathes in, just listening as the sun warms against his skin and he tries to let some of the tension that had been lingering since the night before go. It might be due to the hangover, and from things being so tight in the schedule last night, or because things with work have followed him, proving he can’t even be away for one weekend without something going wrong.

Whatever it is, Seokjin knows he’s been off this whole morning, irritated and on edge, without the usual support team at work. There’s something about being an event’s planner that everyone knows is a curse and a blessing; they never really stop working. Even in situations like this, Seokjin is automatically slipping into that role, organizing and maintaining everything.

It’s probably just harder because this is more personal, more intimate and more hangs on success than just satisfied customers and a paycheck. This is his best friend’s wedding, the friends he hasn’t seen in years, like Hoseok, who lives too far to visit more than once every few months, and things just aren’t working out.

Once, when Seokjin used to plan out study maps and schedule out their work in undergrad, it used to be things like this, Namjoon or Yoongi or Hyosang fooling around with music, that helped him rebalance. He still does it on his own time, usually listening to music in the office or in the car, trying to help himself balance and establish a rhythm while he works.

Now, as he lays in the hammock on the deck, computer in his lap and phone resting by his thigh, it feels a bit like that. It seems like a luxury, to be able to have the time and talent to just pick up an instrument and play it like that, but that’s something Yoongi has almost always had; ability with instruments and music.

It’s nice, and while Seokjin may still think it’s a bit of a waste to stay inside and play an instrument instead of taking advantage of some of the things Seokjin had suggested to do on the island, at least it’s not nothing. It’s something, and Seokjin almost envies the luxury of ignoring the rest of the world to just play around.

Then Seokjin’s phone vibrates, the timer for him to leave for downtown, and Seokjin sighs, standing up and shutting his computer. The music continues on, just a wandering lazy melody in the warm weather as Seokjin leaves.  
  



	6. Chapter 6

★☆★

Of all the activities Seokjin had imagined doing, he hadn’t expected to be on the beach hauling a clear bottom kayak as Soojung carries her own down the beach, Hoseok following them with life jackets.

“I didn’t think they made these like this,” Seokjin comments, taking in the kayak that’s entirely clear. The water is that beautiful tropical blue, almost crystal clear down the bottom, and Seokjin can already imagine how stunning it would be gliding through the water and being able to look down through the water.

“They’re one of the new models,” Soojung says, smiling as the wind pulls at her hair. Seokjin had checked in with everyone before agreeing to come out with Soojung, making sure everyone was safe on whatever it was they were doing. He’d been a bit surprised when Hoseok asked to join himself and Soojung, but Hoseok suggested it’d be fun, just as long as they didn’t go fast.

“But if we see a shark, go fast,” Hoseok had said, and then laughed nervously when Seokjin just stared at him.

They have about two hours of paddling. Seokjin had taken care of the errands downtown, and is just waiting for the officiant and a few others to get back to him, Sooyoung in particular.

“Are you sure you want to bring your cellphone?” Soojung asks, casting the device a look as Seokjin tucks it into a waterproof pouch.

“It’ll be fine,” Seokjin assures, shaking his hair from his face as the wind plays with it. “Besides, I’m waiting to hear back from Sooyoung about a few things. I don’t go anywhere without my phone.”

“I told him we could do a double ceremony on Sunday,” Hoseok says, catching up and picking up the back of Seokjin’s kayak. “For Hyosang and Seulgi, and Seokjin and his cellphone.”

“Don’t laugh, it’s not funny,” Seokjin tells Soojung, who laughs anyway.

“I give her full permission to laugh, I’m hilarious,” Hoseok says, and throws the lifejackets into the kayak.

The day is actually really nice, warm and clear with just enough of a breeze that it’s not too hot. It takes a bit of time before they manage to get into the kayaks, Soojung taking her own and paddling out first before Hoseok and Seokjin follow in their own. It’s pleasant, just paddling on the water, though Seokjin wishes he’d put on another layer of sunscreen.

The best part is the view, not just of the horizon and being able to look back at St. Lucia from the water, but gliding over the tropical waters and being able to see down. It’s a colorful collage of fish, underwater life, coral, and blue clear water. If the sight itself wasn’t enough, Hoseok exclaiming every time something new showed up under them certainly was enough to get Seokjin laughing.

“Is that a shark?” Hoseok says for what feels like the hundredth time and Seokjin laughs, catching sight of what Hoseok had seen.

“Maybe?” he says, and Hoseok lets out a high whine, kayak paddles dipping into the water. “They’re not going to bother us, you’re at least five times as big as that thing.”

“A shark is a shark, man,” Hoseok defends, and flicks water at the back of Seokjin’s neck.

“Just punch it in the nose,” Seokjin says. “ _If_ you fall overboard, which isn’t going to happen. We’re fine.”

“How can you be so calm about this, we literally have a shark under our butts,” Hoseok continues to half whine. “That’s worse than a fire. A fire doesn’t have teeth.”

“More people die every year from having vending machines fall on them than from shark attacks, Hoseok,” Seokjin laughs, turning around in the kayak to look at Hoseok. “Seriously, we’re fine. I promise I’m not going to let you get eaten by a shark.”

“Thank you, great protector Seokjin,” Hoseok says, then flicks more water at the back of his neck. “You’re phone is doing something _again_. I swear, I can’t believe you brought that damn thing out here. If it rings again, I’m throwing it overboard.”

“Then I throw you overboard,” Seokjin says, turning around with a sharp look at Hoseok as he grabs his phone in the waterproof casing. Pulling the device out of the case, Seokjin answers the call from Sooyoung.

“Where are you?” Sooyoung asks, and her tone of voice does not reflect the beautiful day.

“Out kayaking with Soojung,” Seokjin answers, flinching as Hoseok starts splashing him with water and swatting him away. “What’s up?”

A pause.

“You took your cellphone out kayaking?”

“I don’t go anywhere without my cellphone,” Seokjin says, making to smack Hoseok before Hoseok leans away with a yelp. “What’s up?”

“We have a problem,” Sooyoung says, her usual happy and cheerful voice grave.

Suddenly, the sun against his skin just feels hot, no longer pleasant.  
  



	7. Chapter 7

★☆★

It takes a half hour to be back to the beach, and by the time they land Seokjin is already feeling the tight curl of impatience and rush coiling along his limbs. Soojung is close behind him, but Seokjin doesn’t wait, taking off for the resort immediately, unclipping his life jacket and tossing it to Hoseok.

Somehow, and Seokjin isn’t sure _why_ he didn’t check with Hyosang on this before so something like this _didn’t_ happen, they have a problem. A rather _big_ problem that frankly Sooyoung should have taken care of. Seokjin’s jaw tenses as the thoughts of how everything has gone to pieces when he can’t control it race through his mind.

If he’d been in charge of this whole thing, the planning and scheduling and organization, none of this would have happened. The issue of the marriage certificate, the actual legal materials to make sure that the wedding is official, wasn’t ordered. While the details have been submitted with the visa and passports by the couple, apparently the application for the marriage license arrived late, only a week ago.

The actual application requires two weeks, and the application Hyosang and Seulgi sent in arrived a week late.

“I need a cab,” Seokjin almost barks at the front desk as he calls using the resort provided phone in his room. Sooyoung is at the airport picking up one of Hyosang’s uncles and Hyosang and Seulgi are off the map, apparently out horseback riding on one of the other beaches.

“Yes, sir, right away, sir,” the attendant says, and Seokjin hangs up immediately, not bothering with thanks as he pulls on a proper shirt and pants.

Just as Seokjin is getting into the cab out by the front of the resort, his phone rings again, this time from Hoseok.

“Bad news,” Hoseok opens with, and Seokjin closes his eyes, lips pressing together.

“Go ahead,” Seokjin says as the cabby pulls out of the driveway.

“Donghyuk is still in Iceland, says they’re trying to redirect some flights, but most everything is shut down until the strike is over.” Even Hoseok sounds apologetic. “I’ve tried finding other airlines that will work or take him on, but almost the whole airport is shut down.”

“Can’t he just go to another airport?” Seokjin says, a bit short and clipped. “The wedding is in two days, and the rehearsal is _tomorrow_.”

“I know, I know, I’m trying-“

Seokjin lets out a short sigh, cutting Hoseok off. “Fine, I’ll contact Hyosang or leave him a message. If worst comes to worst, he won’t be in the wedding and he can’t get here in time.” Seokjin closes his eyes, grimacing. Hyosang and Donghyuk have been friends for almost as long as Seokjin has known Hyosang. Not having him at the wedding would be a blow for Hyosang and Seokjin knows that better than anyone.

“Seokjin…”

“Let me know if Donghyuk calls you again,” Seokjin says, and can already hear the reception beginning to give out the deeper into the island they go. “I’ll call you once the marriage certificate is sorted out.”

It takes a good hour of Seokjin down in the government offices, arguing with various levels of staff as politely as he can, trying to work through the details of the marriage certificate. They’re lucky that Hyosang and Seulgi have already fulfilled the waiting period requirements, and finally, after talking to about seven different people, Seokjin feels like he gets somewhere. . . 

Only to run into the final immovable response of: “we will process your request and get back to you tomorrow.”

“Is that really the best you can give me?” Seokjin asks, feeling frustrated and futile in the face of the woman behind the counter. 

“I’ll work it out,” Sooyoung says when Seokjin calls her, heading through the town back to grab a cab. He’s got the number of the government office and a few other names he can contact. The bigger issues is that his phone keeps going off with notifications from Namjoon and Jia, which isn’t a good sign in his opinion.

Finally back in the car, Seokjin gets another message that has his blood running cold and with fire at the same time, choking his breath in his throat.

  


**Hyosang – 3:29 :** _You have the wedding rings, right?_

  


“If this is a joke, it’s not funny,” Seokjin says as soon as Hyosang picks up.

“I’m serious,” Hyosang says, voice sounding tight and Seokjin grips the handle of the car door tightly to keep from hitting something. “I’ve been looking for the for the last hour while Seulgi is down in the spa. I thought I might have given them to you when you got here yesterday to hide them so she doesn’t see them and spoil the surprise.”

“I would have remembered if you handed them off,” Seokjin says, eyes closing and running through the last two days, trying to remember a time Hyosang would have given him the rings. “Unless you gave them to my at some point last night, which seems highly unlikely.”

“I know, but I just- I can’t find them, Jin, and I’m seriously freaking out,” Hyosang sighs, and Seokjin holds his tongue, his own frustrated sigh. “What if I forgot to pack them at all? Seulgi is gonna murder me.”

“It’ll be fine,” Seokjin says, and if he’s using his business reassuring tone, he doesn’t care. This is important, this is _personal_ , and Seokjin is more than a little stressed right now. Sooyoung and he agreed not to tell Hyosang about the marriage certificate issue, and Hoseok is running cover on Donghyuk, but this - “We’ll find them. You wouldn’t have forgotten them like that, I know you.”

“Where are you?”

“On my way back from town,” Seokjin explains, teeth clenching as the car goes over a pot hole a bit too fast. “I’ll be back soon to help you look for the rings.”

“What were you doing in town?” Hyosang asks, sounding confused.

“Just checking out some of the local culture, today is supposed to be a free day, right?” Seokjin lies, just as his phone beeps with another call. Pulling it away from his ear, Seokjin frowns at Namjoon’s name.

“Good,” Hyosang says, and sounds a bit happy. “I’m glad you’re taking time to have fun and enjoy yourself. Sorry for bothering you, I just - I’ll see you when you get back then?”

“Yes, I’ll be there soon,” Seokjin says, and pushes a bit of cheer into his voice. “Don’t panic too much, we’ll figure this whole thing out no sweat.”

Feeling the collar of his shirt begin to stick to his skin in the heat, Seokjin rolls down the window of the car as he answers Namjoon’s call. “Please tell me you’re calling with good news,” Seokjin says.

“I’m calling with good news,” Namjoon deadpans. “Is this a bad time?”

“I’m going to lose reception soon, so no, just talk.”

“I got through showing the Philosophers both venues and they turned down both,” Namjoon says just as the car hits another pothole. The motion slams Seokjin’s head against the roof painfully and he lets out an involuntary yelp of pain. “You okay?”

“What’s wrong with the venues?” Seokjin asks, holding down the urge to snarl as the heat of irritation curls under his skin, feeling trapped in the humid heat of the car. It feels like it’s pressing in on him from all sides, pushing the air back into his chest.

“They asked to see whatever else we had to offer? And also refused the caterer for the event. They said they’d heard from another associated group that they weren’t mindful of allergen labeling in foods.” Namjoon sighs. “Look, I’m not calling to tell you to take care of this-“

“Then why are you calling me?” Seokjin snaps before he can stop himself. Taking in fast breath through his nose, Seokjin clears his throat. “Sorry, just - send me the number for the head of -“

“Seokjin, I’m calling to keep you in the loop, not to let you take over,” Namjoon interrupts, the line accumulating static. “You told me to keep you informed, but this isn’t something you can work on. You’re in the Caribbean for fuck’s sake -“

“Don’t swear,” Seokjin immediately snaps, triggered from a profanity filter for work, on at all times.

“I’m talking to you, not a client,” Namjoon says, a bite in his tone. “Look, this — n’t someth — ng you can take – while –“

“You’re breaking up,” Seokjin says, a rush of panic just as irritation rolls in a new wave. “Look, I’ll call you back as soon as I get back to -“

“— kjin?”

Teeth grit, Seokjin hangs up, gripping his phone a bit too tightly before dropping it into his lap. There’s no point in trying to continue a phone call in the terrible service on the island.

It’s frustrating, watching everything begin to unravel and being on the sidelines, trying to wrap it all back together without being the one holding the ropes. Seokjin hates this, and the emotional aspect tied into half of it just reaffirming one of the reasons Seokijn does _not_ handle weddings. At least with work, it’s more like a puzzle, orchestrating a play, where the investment isn’t in emotional satisfaction, but overall success of the whole. 

This is emotionally charged, where he’d heard the tightness in Hyosang’s voice, where he knows this isn’t just a business deal, but a life event. It’s hard to try to keep hands off, like it had been projected eight months ago when Hyosang and Seulgi had offered him the role of Best Man. He wasn’t supposed to be in charge of things like this, instead hands off as they hired a wedding planning for things like this, but it’s not easy to hold off.

It’s harder when it’s him people turn to when things go wrong, when he _knows_ he can fix things like this, usually does, but isn’t given all the information.

It’s _frustrating_ , limiting, and like he’s being set up to have more things go wrong.

If anything, more than ever, Seokjin just feels alone. It’s not the same kind of alone that he feels when working through evenings in his apartment, taking care of all the details of events and conferences and meetings, knowing he trusts himself to get it done.

It’s the kind of alone where Seokjin doesn’t feel like there’s anyone behind him. It’s the kind of alone he hates the most, when he cares too much about everything and it feels like no one else cares enough to help.

As soon as the cab gets to the resort, Seokjin is calling Sooyoung, trying to fill her in on everything. He finds Hyosang in the lounge after trying to call him and checking his room. In the time that he’s been in the cab, the sky has begun to cloud over, wind picking up a bit, and most everyone is inside who had been on the beach.

“I tried calling you,” Hyosang says, looking surprised to see Seokjin.

“I couldn’t get reception for most of the cab ride,” Seokjin explains. “Could you find the rings?”

And Hyosang laughs, just _laughs_ and claps Seokjin on the shoulder. “You’re gonna love this,” he says, as Seokjin stares and, for the first time since getting off the plane, wants to punch Hyosang for laughing when Seokjin is rigid with tension. “Apparently Sooyoung had them the whole time. I handed them off to her for safekeeping when I arrived so Seulgi wouldn’t see them in my luggage.”

He looks at Seokjin like it’s the funniest joke in the world, laughing and patting his shoulder jovially. He looks at Seokjin like he should laugh too, and Seokjin finds the sound winding out of him almost cruelly, a mockery of typical laughter, strained and furious, artificial and exactly the kind of canned laughter he uses with clients who are pissing him off. 

Seokjin needs out, now. 

With a feeble excuse that Hyosang accepts anyway, Seokjin leaves, walking out with long purposeful strides to get away. He passes attendants, staff, other resort guests, and barely notices any of them, just needing to get _away_.

Going back to his room is too tight, too closed, and holds the threat of meandering listless music that doesn’t care where it goes. The wind clips him as soon as he hits the sand, passing empty lounge chairs and flapping umbrellas, walking straight to the shore.

The neck of his shirt clings to him, pressing down, the heat from the car, the pressure in his stomach from the horrific car ride, and the bottled up excess of things to do he has no control over press up against the back of his throat. It’s like being put into a slowly shrinking room, and Seokjin’s head begins to give the first few telltale throbs of a headache just as his feet, sandals and all, splash into the ocean water.

It’s like a trigger. As soon as the water hits his skin, Seokjin is opening his mouth and everything that’s messed up, everything that’s wound up in his chest and futile explodes out of him in a roar of sound. The horizon looks back at him, listening to him yell and yell and yell wordless with pent up frustration until there’s no air left in him.

It watches him yell until he’s hollow and empty, panting with water dragging over his feet as he stands there alone.

Then, as full and pressurized as he’d felt moments ago, suddenly, as he takes in another gasp of breath, exhaustion fills up the empty space inside him.

The break in routine, the sudden removal, to get away, has torn him out of the steady stream of choreographed repetition of habit and keeping on until he gets through it. It’s thrown him out of the rhythm, and it leaves him exhausted, feeling no better, with just as many issues as he had before and with no more solution.

“Wow,” says a voice behind him, and Seokjin whips around. He hadn’t realized there was anyone there.

Of course, looking back now, Seokjin realizes how he missed the guy lying on the beach. He’s not a patron of the resort, and he doesn’t even have a chair or a towel that he’s lying on in the dry beach. Instead, he’s just spread out, pushed up from what looks like a spread eagle position on the sand.

It’s the same man from the night before, the waiter, in pineapple print swim trunks, huge reflective sunglasses, and his bangs pulled off his face into a ponytail that sticks straight up from his hairline. 

“What are you doing here?” Seokjin bites out, not moving from where he’s slowly being rooted in the sand.

The guy, ‘Taehyung’ Seokjin remembers, shrugs. “I was trying to sunbathe, then nap, but now I guess I’m watching you yell at water.” Seokjin’s teeth grit at the way he says it almost like it’s a joke. “Is it fun?”

“What?”

“Yelling at water,” Taehyung says, and pushes himself up from the sand. “I’ve never really tried it before, but I feel like screaming might work better. You don’t get quite the volume just yelling, or the frequency.” He pauses from dusting off his knees, tilting his head as he looks at Seokjin. “Wait, I know you.”

“You should be fired,” Seokjin says, glaring as Taehyung walks closer, completely unperturbed by the harsh comment.

“Why? Because of an accident?” Taehyung asks, the next moment startling Seokjin back a few steps as he suddenly races into the water, kicking it up into the air.

“What is your problem?” Seokjin snaps, trying to regain his footing to glare at Taehyung, who kicks around in a circle through the rushing waves, completely careless of Seokjin.

“It’s not like the ocean’s going to be mad at me,” Taehyung says, stopping just long enough to look at Seokjin and shrug. “Besides, not many people play with it like this.” Before Seokjin can reply, before he can say anything, Taehyung is suddenly lunging forward and screaming at the top of his lungs out at the open sea, arms wide as if to let out everything inside of himself at the emotionless water.

Then, just as suddenly, he stops, steps back letting his arms fall to his sides, and he lets out a sort of relieved sigh. “You know,” Taehyung says, turning to Seokjin. “I get it now.”

“What did you do that for?” Seokjin asks, staring at Taehyung, not quite sure what to do or say to the unpredictable man.

“Just wanted to,” Taehyung says. “You know, sometimes you have to scream at the ocean. Let it all out so it doesn’t fester and grow inside yourself, all that bad shit you keep in there is horrible for your digestion.”

“Yeah?”

Taehyung nods, kicking around at the water at his feet a bit. “It’s not good to hold onto stuff all the time. Letting things get to you and hold you down just means you carry it all the time, makes you miserable, you know?” He lets out a big breath, arms stretching up over his head before he’s screaming all over again, straight out at the water as Seokjin watches, dumbfounded.

“What are you so mad at?” Seokjin asks, frowning as Taehyung stops again.

Taehyung shrugs, and Seokjin feels some of the earlier irritation stir, coiling back in his belly at the indifferent response. “Dunno,” Taehyung says. “I just feel like screaming, so I am.” He kicks some more water. “What about you? What are you mad at?”

“You,” Seokjin says immediately, his anger once more flaring, rising in energy through him.

“Because I dropped food on you?”

“You dumped it in my lap!” Seokjin half yells, gesturing agitatedly. “Without even an apology! Nothing! You just-“

“What was I supposed to do?” Taehyung asks, head cocked to the side. “I mean, it wasn’t like I could just make it gone, like it hadn’t happened.”

“But-!”

“And like I said, the laundry service would take care of it for you free of charge. It’s an employee mistake, so they’d take care of it free of charge,” Taehyung continues. “It’s not the end of the world. It was just one incident in an entire day of stuff that happened.” He shrugs and kicks at the water again as Seokjin stares, fuming slightly. “Besides, I didn’t get mad at you when I got transferred. You were the one who tried to get me fired.”

“I - what?” Seokjin frowns, dodging too late when Taehyung kicks water in his direction.

“Last night, when they transferred me at the bar, and I kept trying to give you fruit juice instead of an angry samurai, whatever that is,” Taehyung scoffs, blowing a raspberry a moment later.

“You mean a samurai martini,” Seokjin deadpans.

“Whatever, you didn’t want the drinks and then kept telling Jeongguk he should fire me.” Taehyung kicks harder at the water before laughing. “Jeongguk isn’t even my boss.”

“You should be fired after what happened,” Seokjin says, knowing how this would be handled if he-

“Why? Because of an accident? You’d kick someone out of a job over a mistake? That’s kind of dramatic. That’s like saying if you make a mistake in life, you should die.” Taehyung kicks harder and sends a huge splash of water towards the horizon. Seokjin swallows, the words unsettling. “Seems pretty drastic to me, don’t you think?”

“You still should have apologized.”

“Okay,” Taehyung says and turns to him with a smile. “I’m sorry. Better?”

“No,” Seokjin frowns.

“Why? I did what you wanted.”

Seokjin’s frown deepens, mixing with some of the frustration, anger, and exhaustion still churning in his chest, tugging at the back of his throat. A few feet away, Taehyung has begun to swing his hands as he kicks at the water, sending a few waves in Seokjin’s direction. He takes in a deep breath, throws his head back, sunglasses flying off of his face, and screams again.

“What was that for?” Seokjin asks when Taehyung stops and looks around for his sunglasses.

“For you,” Taehyung says, hands in the water, hunting for the sunglasses. “You look like you need to get some stuff off your chest, like you’re holding on to too much crap and just need to let it out.”

“Like what?”

“I dunno, I’m not you,” Taehyung laughs, standing up and holding his sunglasses. “C’mon, you started it.”

Looking out at the horizon, the gray sky over him casting shadows over the water, sunlight far beyond against the waves, far out of reach. Too far for Seokjin to get it, the way out of this mess he’s been running after since this morning.

Since yesterday.

For eight months.

Or longer.

Seokjin doesn’t realize he’s breathing in until he’s already screaming, lungs burning and throat aching as he screams over the waves. At his sides, his hands curl automatically into fists, tense and shaking as he screams every last bit of air out of himself. As soon as he stops, he finally registers Taehyung’s voice beside his, lingering just a bit longer.

Then, as Seokjin turns to look at him, Taehyung suddenly shouts, “Again!” and screams once more, voice ricocheting over the water and Seokjin breathes in deep, letting it all out a second later in to chase Taehyung’s voice over the waves. The screaming he wanted to do last night when an entire entrée was dumped in his lap.

The scream he wanted to let out when Donghyuk’s plane was delayed, when the no one seemed to be able to do anything with him away from the office. The scream he wanted to let out at the government office this afternoon, at Hyosang on the phone, back in the lounge when Hyosang laughed in his face and Seokjin felt so alone.

The scream he had been holding in for years, all of the screams he’d been holding in, swallowing down, festering at the bottom of his lungs until he couldn’t breathe.

So he screams, and screams and screams and screams, head thrown back to look up at the clouds that mess up even this beautiful day as the sound rings in his ears. He screams and screams again and again, not even hearing Taehyung’s voice after a while, only the rushing of the waves and his own voice echoing in his head until he has nothing left to scream.

Panting, throat sore, all Seokjin can hear is the rushing of waves over the sands, the breeze, and the sound of his own breaths. It’s not an empty feeling, the hollow ache he’d had after the first scream, and while he’s tired, it’s not a bad tired.

If anything, Seokjin feels _clean_. The water keeps washing over his feet, but it’s pleasant, almost soothing, like the ocean doesn’t care that he screamed at it over and over, it’s still there.

It’s weird, especially in Seokjin’s micro-managed and scheduled life where he’s almost always surrounded by people, but for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t feel the lingering sense of being alone.

“Wow,” Taehyung says, and Seokjin turns to see him still standing a few feet away, toes buried in the sand and surf. “You had a lot of stuff built up in there.”

“Yeah,” Seokjin says, and his voice is hoarse, but he doesn’t mind the ache. It’s kind of nice, actually. “I guess I did.”

“Sometimes, it’s better to just let go of stuff like that,” Taehyung says. “Feels like you had a lot of small stuff you were holding on to.”

“I’m a details person,” Seokjin says. It’s strange, but the irritation is gone, and while earlier, looking at Taehyung made him mad, now he doesn’t feel that wrench in his gut. If anything, it feels like water, like the ocean washing over his feet.

“I like big things,” Taehyung says, and gestures out to the ocean. “And little things. And scary things and funny things, I just don’t hold on to all those things. If I did, I’d never have space for more things.”

“What are you talking about?” Seokjin frowns.

“I mean, if you only hold onto the bad things, like me dumping soup on you, you can’t see the good things, like how happy your friend was the whole night,” Taehyung says, and then kicks another splash of water at Seokjin. “Seems kind of like a waste if that’s all you notice.”

“You try having a lap full of hot soup and focusing on other things,” Seokjin say, kicking water back at him, but the anger is gone, and instead a new different sound bubbles out of Seokjin’s mouth.

A laugh.

“Why are you laughing?” Taehyung asks, though he’s begun to laugh himself, higher, almost giggles.

“I don’t know,” Seokjin laughs, and laughs and laughs through his aching throat as he kicks more water at Taehyung.

“You’re weird,” Taehyung tells him, and kicks one more splash of water at him before turning and running back up the beach and away.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to get ready for my new job!” Taehyung calls back. “I’m probably late.”

Just like that, Seokjin is left in the water, standing at the shore as water washes over his feet and staring up the beach towards the resort, trying to understand how someone could forget about their work enough to be late like that. Though the same usual flare of judgment, irritation and urgency he usually has in gone, that soft feeling of waves in his chest still there.

He’s out of the routine, has no idea how long he’s been down here at the ocean, and he’s probably missed calls and texts on his phone, his shorts half soaked from Taehyung kicking water at him. Yet a part of Seokjin doesn’t care as he looks back out over the horizon where the sky meets the sea.  
  



	8. Chapter 8

★☆★

No one has died in the time Seokjin has been gone, though Hyosang looks a bit concerned and Hoseok downright worried. Namjoon sounds legitimately concerned when he answers the phone.

“I thought you were dead,” Namjoon says.

“No,” Seokjin says, walking into his room and finally feeling tired. The sun is beginning to set and Seokjin knows dinner is soon and everyone will be back soon. “I just had some things I needed to take care of.”

“What happened to your voice?”

“Nothing,” Seokjin sighs, reaching for a water to sooth the ache in his throat from screaming earlier. He’s not quite sure what happened, but it feels like something is different, though that might just be the exhaustion.

It’s been a long time since Seokjin let himself be tired. There was never time to be tired.

“Look, anyway, as I was saying before we lost signal,” Namjoon presses on. “I’m not telling you this stuff so you can do it. I’m keeping you up to date on things. But I’m taking care of stuff from now on, okay?”

“Okay,” Seokjin says, closing his eyes. They feel dry, overused. 

There is a pregnant pause before Namjoon says, “okay?”

“Yeah,” Seokjin says, and walks out to the deck to look out at the hidden sunset. It turns the gray clouds overhead into a violence of reds, oranges, and pinks. “I’m not much good out here anyway.”

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Just-“ Seokjin pauses, and his eyes linger on the horizon. “I think I need a vacation.”

“Thank God.”

It startles a laugh out of him, and Seokjin steps back, easing on the hammock as he laughs at Namjoon’s response. “What?”

“It’s about damn time you took a break,” Namjoon says. “It’s been, what? Four years?”

“Eight.”

“That’s just pathetic that you actually know that,” Namjoon grumbles. “But yes, I agree, break, good, yes. Regain your sanity and actually sleep for once. And let me know when so I can use the time you’re gone to initiate a hostile takeover of the company.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Seokjin says, smiling anyway.

“Kidding,” Namjoon says with a laugh. “See you Tuesday?”

“I’ll call to keep up with some stuff,” Seokjin says, leaning back in the hammock. “I still have the early stages of the Kwon designer week to go over.”

“Fine,” Namjoon says. “Whatever keeps you sane, but you’re off NPA and Career Forum until Tuesday. I’m assuming command.”

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Seokjin laughs, and runs a hand down his face, wincing at the feeling of old sunscreen. “I’ll be back in a few days.”

“Yeah, I know,” Namjoon sighs. “I’m just glad you’re finally considering a vacation. You need one, probably more than most anyone I know, including myself.”

“Thank you,” Seokjin says, and hangs up before Namjoon can go on.

Ending the call with Namjoon doesn’t mean things are over and better. There’s still the marriage certificate issue, and there are still people who have yet to arrive from the airport, their flights delayed due to weather. Those that have arrived came loaded with questions, and Seokjin already can feel a headache of family arguments. Donghyuk is still stuck in Reykjavik and the florist for the wedding still hasn’t gotten back to either him or Sooyoung, which is frustrating on top of everything else.

Glancing at his phone, Seokjin lets out another sigh. It’s almost six, and he’s never late.  
  


★☆★

Dinner doesn’t last. While most of the other guests, the bride and groom, and most of the wedding party get to stay and enjoy the meal, Seokjin is pulled away before he can finish half of his meal. More people are arriving, and rather than following directions properly, they’re getting lost, taking cabs to the wrong resorts and Seokjin and Soojung are given names, phone numbers, and pushed out the door to go and hunt down stragglers.

“All in a days work, huh?” Soojung says, a rueful smile on her face before she ducks into a cab. The winds have begun to pick up a bit, and the sky is threatening rain. Seokjin had to collect at least two people, Hyosangs’s younger sister and his uncle, squishing into the cab with him just as the sky opened up and poured on them.

“Do you think it’ll rain for the wedding?” Yerim, Hyosang’s sister, had worried over as she peered out the window over Seokjin’s lap.

“No,” Seokjin said, and tried to smile as they went over another pothole. It feels a blessing almost that he hadn’t had time to eat anything properly, the less in his stomach the better as they batter around the unpaved roads.

By the time they got back to Ti Kanye, the rain was in a downpour, dinner was over, and Seokjin could only send Yerim and her uncle into the restaurant for some food, promising to have their bags taken to their rooms. The bellhops were running around with umbrellas and it took a few texts before Seokjin found Hyosang and Seulgi.

“If the rain keeps up, we’re going to have to do the whole thing inside,” Hyosang says as Seokjin joins them. They’re in one of the side parlor rooms off a banquet hall, Yoongi and Sooyoung also there, Soojung presumable still on her way back from the airport.

“So then we do it inside,” Yoongi shrugs, looking at the bride and groom and shrugging. “Unless you want to get married in the rain.”

“We can’t,” Sooyoung sighs, and Seokjin frowns, sinking down into one of the closest chairs. “One of the other wedding groups here reserved the indoor area for a wedding that day, they have it booked for almost the entire day on a platinum package with the resort. I’d ask for the banquet hall but they’re holding a local conference for the city board of trustees so it’s not available.”

“We could all hold umbrellas,” Hoseok suggests, a hopeful grin on his face as he looks around. It doesn’t fall completely flat, but the response is lackluster.

“We’ll just hope the weather holds then,” Seokjin says, and pulls attention to himself. “Plus, there wasn’t rain forecasted, right?” He looks up at Sooyoung, who offers him a smile, though a little weak. Seokjin almost wants to tell her to not let the doubt show in front of the client, but keeps his mouth shut.

It’s not his client, this isn’t his project, his wedding to plan. Hands _off_.

“What if we book a different venue,” Seokjin suggests. “There must be another place on the island with an open area that we can use as a back-up option. One of the other resorts or -“

“And transport everyone there in cabs?” Seulgi asks, and Hyosang reaches over to take her hand in her lap, squeezing gently. “Everything is arranged to be here, from the officiant to music to the reception transition. We set it up with the resort ages ago.”

“Then have them set up a tent,” Seokjin says simply. “I’m sure the resort has one they can set up. It’s not the first time they’ve dealt with rain.”

“There’s no saying it _will_ rain,” Yoongi interjects, looking at Seokjin with an almost tired expression. “The wedding is in two days, the weather might clear up before then and we’ll have sunshine.”

“But there should be a back-up plan,” Seokjin argues, and frowns as Yoongi lets out a sigh and a minute shake of the head. “I’m just saying, whether we use the tents or not, they’re there as an option if we need it. It won’t make perfect pictures, but at least people will be dry.”

“ _If_ it rains,” Hyosang says, and smiles wider and brighter than anyone so far. “But that’s a big ‘if’ that we’re looking at here.” Seokjin can see him squeeze Seulgi’s hands again, and swallows, taking in a deep breath to remind himself that, even if they’re not his clients, it’s just as much his responsibility to keep them happy; calm.

“If it’s still raining tomorrow, then we can worry about making separate arrangements,” Seokjin says, and nods to Sooyoung for her approval and final call. This is, after all, her event.

“I think we should all get some rest,” Sooyoung says, and looks around at the group with a smile. “I think the night time events will probably be postponed with the weather like this, so perhaps a night in? Or an evening at the spa?”

As the small group begins to filter off, Seokjin lingers, letting Seulgi and Hyosang know that Yerim and Hyosang’s uncle are here, taking a bit of time to chat with them. It’s nice to see them slowly relax, talking about their day and what they’ve been up to on the island while they prepare for the wedding, trading fond looks and teasing each other. It makes Seokjin smile, though feel slightly sad he’s missed out on the two of them for so many years.

It had been when Seokjin was just really getting grounded in the event’s business he and Namjoon worked into when Hyosang and Seulgi had begun dating, and only a year later that Hyosang moved out to California. There hadn’t been a lot of time to spend with either of them, and Seokjin realizes that just as he’s missed his best friend, he’s missed out on getting to know Seulgi as well.

“Besides,” Seulgi says, easing away from her earlier tension as they’d talked. “Hyosang’s original idea was to get married on a boat, a tent seems much less hazardous.”

Seokjin laughs as Hyosang protests for his idea, Seulgi laughing at his arguments for the boat. “Besides, Seokjin is just trying to make sure we’re ready in case something happens. He’s always extra prepared.”

“It’s a habit,” Seokjin shrugs, and feels a bit more relaxed being able to talk with them.

“How many extra pairs of underpants did you pack?” Hyosang asks, grinning knowingly.

“Hyosang!”

“Three,” Seokjin answers easily. “You never know! I might get stranded here like Donghyuk is stranded in Reykjavik.”

“He’s still stuck?” Seulgi asks sympathetically.

“According to Hoseok,” Seokjin sighs. “Hopefully he can get out tomorrow and get here in time for the Rehearsal in the afternoon.”

“That’s a twelve hour flight.”

“The dinner then,” Seokjin corrects, and smiles as best as he can to compensate for Seulgi and Hyosang’s weaker ones. “It’ll all work out.”

They spend a bit more time, soon joined by Soojung, on the next day’s schedule. The next day is full of the rehearsal, picking up relatives, and beginning to get everything set up. It’s the rehearsal, the rehearsal dinner, and when things begin to really get moving. Seulgi and Hyosang look excited, nervous, but excited, and their hands keep finding each other’s as Sooyoung walks them through everything. Seokjin and Soojung run through their lists of responsibilities before being dismissed for the night.

The rain is falling harder than ever as Seokjin borrows an umbrella from the front desk to get to the rooms, offering to walk Soojung back. She thanks him, wishing him luck with a bit of latent encouragement before going into her unit. The rain patters on the roof of the cottage room as Seokjin steps into his own unit, a soft constant white noise through the room.

There’s just enough of a breeze from the ocean that Seokjin makes to close the deck doors, blocking out the outside, before he pauses, hands on the latch.

From the other side of the divide, he can hear the sound of Yoongi playing his guitar-like instrument. It has a melody now, and while it still wanders, it sounds like it knows where it’s going. It sounds familiar somehow, even if Seokjin knows Yoongi is just playing around and making up the song as he goes, slowly fine tuning it over time.

Frowning, Seokjin steps back, closing one door, leaving the other open to keep listening as he straightens up the room for the evening and following day. Turning on a few lights, he heads out to the bathroom to wash up, losing the sound of Yoongi playing as he does. When he gets back, running a towel through his hair, he pauses, noticing the silence first.

The next thing he notices is Yoongi in his room, sitting on one of the chairs. His hair is damp, making the pink look darker in the soft lighting of the room. 

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” Seokjin says, gesturing to the chair Yoongi is already sitting in. Yoongi doesn’t reply, just leans forward, elbows resting on his knees as he watches Seokjin. His lower lip is pulled between his teeth, waiting to speak.

It has Seokjin frowning slightly, remembering when he used to know what it was Yoongi was about to say. A long time ago, that might have still be true, but not now. Now, Seokjin just waits, not sure what’s going on in Yoongi’s head.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?” Seokjin asks when Yoongi doesn’t speak, turning away to continue laying out things for the next day. When Yoongi still doesn’t answer, Seokjin turns to look at him, leaning against the dressing table. “What were you playing?”

Yoongi looks up, confusion writing on his face. “What?”

“The instrument,” Seokjin says, nodding towards Yoongi’s room. “What is it?”

Yoongi swallows, Seokjin watching his throat work, and wets his lips before sitting up properly. Well, as properly as he does, which is still somewhat of a slouch. Seokjin instinctively straightens his own posture just looking at him. “It’s called a cuatro,” he says, fingers lacing together in his lap carefully. “It’s kind of like the Puerto Rican ukulele, but with more strings.”

“It sounds nice,” Seokjin says, fingers tapping against the wood of the dressing table. “I didn’t know you played other things aside from piano these days.”

Yoongi lets out a sort of soft scoff. “It’s kind of hard to bring a piano in for music therapy sessions, and some patients just need other music to help them. Guitar is a popular one. I expanded my options.”

“Makes sense,” Seokjin nods, and waits. The last he knew, Yoongi was still mostly playing piano with his patients. There’s not much Seokjin understands about what Yoongi does, just that he uses music to help them recover from their conditions, though the details of it are hazy to him. Yoongi doesn’t elaborate anymore, and Seokjin stopped asking. “So-“

“This isn’t your event, you know,” Yoongi says, cutting him off. Seokjin closes his mouth, lips pressed together firmly as Yoongi stares at him from across the room. “I know events and stuff are what you do, but you’re the best man, not the wedding planner on this one.”

“I know that,” Seokjin says, tone a bit short. “I don’t plan weddings anyway.”

“How was I supposed to know that?” Yoongi says, sitting up a bit taller. “You hardly talk about work. You never talk about-“

“You never ask,” Seokjin says, frowning now as he stares back.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to know,” Yoongi retorts, a frown tugging at his mouth as well.

“Yeah, that is kind of what it means,” Seokjin retorts, and pushes off from the dressing table. The crawl is back under his skin, faded since the afternoon and risen a bit from the rush of the evening, but it’s back in full force; irritation. “Or are people just supposed to know what you’re thinking if you don’t tell them?”

“You used to.”

Seokjin pauses, and takes in a deep breath, teeth grit as he looks back at Yoongi’s hard stare. “Why did you stop talking to me?”

“Me?” The incredulity in Yoongi’s voice rises in pitch, eyes widening like Seokjin shocked him. “ _I’m_ the one that - Seokjin -“

Once, a long time ago, they were all friends, but Seokjin and Yoongi were close, very close. They were close enough that Seokjin could just know from a look what Yoongi was thinking. Back then, it was funny, a trait of youth when Yoongi demanded more sleep and grumbled about not being a morning person, when he’d push off deadlines and ignore his mistakes, passing them off as ‘in the past now’. Then, they’d all been young, and Seokjin was comfortable with it, and they _talked_ , close enough that Seokjin had thought -

But all things change, and people grow up. Seokjin grew up, and knew that a routine and a schedule and _life_ make the world of college life seem laughable. Seokjin grew up.

“But you did,” Seokjin repeats. “And yeah, I do events, I spend my time planning functions, but I’m _still_ doing that here. What do you think a best man _does_?”

“I don’t think he does what you’ve been doing,” Yoongi says and lets out a sigh after, stopping Seokjin’s breath in his chest. There was nothing kind in that sentence, just blunted opinion, spoken like fact, and it hurts more than Seokjin wants it to. Yoongi sighs again, and leans back to rest his elbows on his knees. “You’ve been stressed since you got here, all of us can feel it. We’re supposed to be here to support Hyosang and -“

“I _am_ -“

“You nearly yelled at a waiter last night and spent more time herding us around and watching over us like sheep than _spending time_ with your best friend.” _That_ hurts, and Seokjin’s teeth grit as he stares at Yoongi. It was better when they still didn’t talk, perhaps. “Last night was fine, thanks to Hoseok and myself but -“

“There was nothing wrong with last night,” Seokjin says, and takes a breath before his voice can rise. “Not everything went to plan, but -“

“It was _fine_ ,” Yoongi repeats louder.

“ _Because I made sure it would be,_ ” Seokjin snaps, and uncurls his hands, unaware they’d balled up until he’d felt them shaking. He takes a deep breath, and looks away, trying to calm the heat in his chest and the agitated crawl under his skin.

Out of the open door of the deck, Seokjin can see the ocean in the distance, and in his head echoes the sounds of his screams from earlier today. It feels like they’re bottled back up, but longer, higher, sadder this time.

“But you locked the rest of us out,” Yoongi says, voice quieter but no less insistent. “Hell, you’ve been locking me out for longer.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean -“ Yoongi sighs, cutting himself off as he drops his gaze, looking down to his hands as his fingers begin to interlace and shift. “Never mind.”

“Sure,” Seokjin says, and the irritation grows. “Never mind.” Yoongi looks up, something that looks like confusion playing over his face, but Seokjin can’t tell, can’t read him anymore. He hasn’t been able to read him for years, not since work really became a priority and it was always Namjoon that Yoongi ended up calling first instead of him. “Just, never mind.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Seokjin says, and shakes his head. It’s been a long day, a long two days, a long week, a long eight months. A long eight years. Seokjin is tired. “Just - nothing. Look, we can talk tomorrow, or - I don’t know, after the wedding. Or not talk.”

“Why?” Yoongi’s voice is heavier. “I’m here, right now, and you don’t talk to anyone else so -“

“Who else am I supposed to talk to right now?” Seokjin snaps. “Hyosang is getting married, nervous and excited and I’m not about to mess up this for him by talking to him about stuff that’s going wrong on my end. I don’t see Hoseok enough to want to throw anything to him, and you -“ Seokjin takes in a sharp breath. “I don’t even know how to talk to you anymore because it’s always just another ‘never mind’ or telling me not to care about something. Is that really it?”

There is nothing to read on Yoongi’s face, just a blank expression watching him carefully, mouth in a line. Impassive. Even if he’s here, and sitting right in this room, it feels like he’s not here at all, and Seokjin still feels alone.

The worst kind of alone, where it’s like he’s being cut out, again.

“Is what really it?”

“I can’t do what you do and just not care about people, about what needs to get done and just assume it’ll be okay, that someone else will take care of it,” Seokjin says, working hard to keep his voice calm, collected. “ _I’m_ that someone else, the one who does take care of all the stuff that people like you don’t bother with.”

Something flickers in Yoongi’s eyes, and it looks almost like anger, but then it’s gone, and Yoongi pulls away, sitting up and fixing him with a blank look. “Yeah,” he says, tone even. “I try not to let things bother me.”

Seokjin scoffs, arms folding over his chest. “You mean you don’t care”

For a long moment, they stay there, starting at each other. Yoongi stares straight back at Seokjin, unmoving, just breathing as Seokjin waits for him to answer.

Then Yoongi breathes in, and says, “you’re right, I don’t care,” and stares at Seokjin, as if challenging him. There’s something there, waiting under the words, waiting to be read, for Seokjin to find it and pull it out, to _understand_ , but he can’t.

Seokjin can’t read him, doesn’t know Yoongi well enough anymore to be able to read between his few words to find the labyrinth underneath of meaning. It’s exhausting, and Seokjin is already exhausted, and trying to figure out Yoongi, whatever challenge it is Yoongi has set up for him, is beyond Seokjin right now.

“Fine,” he says, and knows it’s not what Yoongi wants to hear from his expression. “Fine,” he repeats, and steps back, picking up the towel from earlier. “Don’t care, let someone else care, and just keep on -“

“What happened to you?”

“What happened to me?” Seokjin asks, stopping to turn to Yoongi, irritation spiking all over again at the accusatory tone. “I grew up,” he says. “I took responsibility and got a real job, in the real world and have been living in that world, caring about the things everyone else cares about because that’s _normal_. People are supposed to care, to take care of themselves and -“

“You’re saying I don’t?” Yoongi asks, and there’s no matching irritation for Seokjin to face, just a calm remark from a blank face. “I see you every week, so I have to be able to take care of myself outside of the few hours I actually -“

“If that.”

“Only because you’re working all the time.”

“That’s what people _do_ ,” Seokjin almost yells. “They _work_ , they have jobs, they have schedules and meetings and deadlines and things to do! I work because it’s what I do, it’s –“

“It’s all you do,” Yoongi says, and stands up.

“And you’re saying if I wasn’t working all the time, what, it’d be like it used to be? Where we saw each other all the time? You can’t just come in and expect me to just talk to you, for me to understand whatever it is you’re not telling me.” Seokjin doesn’t let it go, Yoongi’s indifferent attitude almost making him angrier, wanting to get something from him, _anything_ to show that he cares, even a little.

“No,” Yoongi says, and shakes his head, turning towards the deck. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

The rain patters on the roof, filling the silence as Seokjin watches Yoongi and waits for an answer. A soft wind picks up outside before Yoongi finally answers.

“I don’t know,” he says, and shakes his head, as if agitated. “It’s late, and I’m tired. We both should get some sleep.” He pauses, hand on the door handle. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Seokjin doesn’t tell him goodnight, just watches as he leaves, holding the towel he’d impulsively folded in his hands, until the door clicks shut.

Despite the entire conversation, which had left Seokjin feeling irritated, frustrated with himself and especially with Yoongi, tired from a too long day and problems that still weren’t solved, as soon as the door shuts, all of that halts. It all just stops and Seokjin stands in his room feeling now, more than ever, extremely alone.  
  



	9. Chapter 9

★☆★

The rain still hasn’t stopped by the morning, and Seokjin wakes feeling heavy to the grayish light of morning. The soft sounds of the cuatro greet him when he steps out of the shower, and he pauses, listening. The music doesn’t stop as he gets ready for the day, cleaning up his room and checking his phone for the itinerary and updates from Sooyoung about family needing to be picked up.

The music is still floating from Yoongi’s room when Seokjin leaves for breakfast, grabbing the umbrella by the door. He pauses right at the door, wondering for a brief moment if he should offer to walk with Yoongi down to breakfast, but turns away. Yoongi is awake, and if he makes it to breakfast or not is up to him, not Seokjin.

Gone are the days when Seokjin would remind him to eat by stopping by his room after class. They’re adults, and Seokjin has other things to do this morning than make sure one of the groomsmen takes care of himself.

That’s not Seokjin’s job.

“Still against that tent?” Seokjin asks as he catches sight of Sooyoung by the food. She has in a similar earpiece to the one he usually wears for work, a clipboard in her arms and business professional attire on. She looks a bit harried, dark circles under her eyes, and Seokjin feels a faint pang of recognition, knowing what that feeling is like.

“The weather is supposed to clear up this afternoon,” Sooyoung says, and offers him a weak smile. “We should be okay for tomorrow after the afternoon sun comes out and dries everything.” Overhead, a roll of thunder sounds and Seokjin hears from one of the tables in the dining room the unmistakable sound of Hoseok yelping. “But I’ll check with the staff about the tent anyway, just in case,” Sooyoung finishes, and lets out a small sigh.

“Good,” Seokjin says, trying to reassure her. “Weather is always the enemy for outdoors events like this, I swear.”

“I’m used to holding things indoors,” Sooyoung says, serving herself a few pancakes and some fruit. “This is the first time the company put me down here, and with more than one job. It’s just -“ Seokjin watches her, catches the slight shake in her fingers as she brushes her hair behind her ear. “It’s actually great,” she says, straightening up and smiling widely at him. “It’s nice to finally be given more responsibility and recognition.”

“This is your first destination wedding?”

“Fourth, but first alone,” Sooyoung says, and looks out over the dining hall. “Anyway, I’ve got to check in with the florists. You’ve got the speeches and order set for tonight, right?”

“It’s taken care of,” Seokjin says, and smiles the easy professional smile he’s so used to wearing as Sooyoung steps away.

The first piece of good news arrives when Seokjin is stepping into a cab to go fetch Hyosang’s parents, who had just landed. Donghyuk had _finally_ managed to get a flight out of Reykjavik, arriving tomorrow morning, and would at least be here for the wedding. Hoseok looked ready to collapse in relief when he relayed the message to Seokjin, and it did feel as if a weight had been lifted with the news. So far, things were getting back on track.

It’s a fast paced morning, the groomsmen cycling out to in cabs to collect people from the airport, and Seokjin gets back with Hyosang’s parents first after a pleasant car ride. Holding one of the umbrellas from the front entrances, Seokjin helps Hyosang’s mother out of the car, laughing as she jokes about the rain, and walks with her into the resort, double checking to make sure a bellhop is helping Hyosang’s father.

As soon as they’re inside, they’re greeted with Hyosang and a few of the staff, raising the noise level as everyone gives their greetings. It’s then that Seokjin notices the bell boy who had led Hyosang’s father inside.

“What are you doing here?” Seokjin asks, staring at Taehyung in his new uniform.

“Holding umbrellas for cheery old guys,” Taehyung says. “We basically have the same job, except you’re apparently a ladies man.”

“ _This_ is your new job?” Seokjin asks, feeling a nervous crawl under his skin, almost like apprehension.

“I get a fancy new hat and everything,” Taehyung says. “Plus, this is apparently good for me because I don’t work out. Jeongguk says it’s like weight lifting but for cheaters.”

“They’re suitcases,” Seokjin points out.

“You never know if there might be a dead body in one of them,” Taehyung says with a shrug. “You’d be surprised what people pack for a weekend get-away.”

Fortunately for Seokjin, Hyosang pulls him away, explaining a few things about the mock up rehearsal area and Seokjin is left to glance back at Taehyung. It leaves him wincing, stomach jumping in terror as he catches Taehyung trying to _juggle_ some of the bags.

“The mock up venue for the ceremony is in one of the parlors, considering the actual outdoor area is still being rained on. The officiant should be here in a few hours, around two, and then we can get things set up for the dinner and get people settled in.” Hyosang says this all very fast, and then lets out a long sigh, pushing his hands through his hair.

“You alright?” Seokjin asks, stepping a bit closer to his best friend.

“Fine,” Hyosang says, and smiles widely. “I’m fine. I’m just - I’m getting married tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Seokjin says, smiling as he grasps Hyosang’s shoulder. “You are.” Hyosang smiles, and lets out another sigh, nodding a bit and just looking a bit jittery. “It’s gonna be great. We’ll take care of everything to make sure it goes well.”

“Thanks,” Hyosang says, and sounds a bit more settled. “I just feel like I’ve been - _we’ve_ been waiting to do this for so long, and now it’s finally here, it’s a bit overwhelming.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s how weddings are supposed to be,” Seokjin says, laughing a bit and Hyosang joins him.

“You would know, experience and all,” Hyosang says, and Seokjin, for once, doesn’t bother to correct the assumption.

All too soon, Hyosang is being pulled away by Sooyoung and his parents, and Seokjin is out, heading into town to check up with the government office on the marriage license and with the florist. The rain lashes against the window, and too frequently Seokjin’s phone goes off with another notification.

Another flight delayed coming in because of the weather, another issue with then someone not making a transfer, and another question. Sangdo texts him with _”I think I drank the tap water on accident_ ” just as the cab goes over a pothole and Seokjin bites his tongue accidentally.

Luckily, once into town, the florist is happy to reassure Seokjin that she’ll deliver the flowers the following day, just as the resort requested. Another notification comes in of another plane delay, but another arrival that needs to be picked up. Seokjin tries to sidle himself out of the conversation with the florist in the most polite way of saying ‘I don’t care about your fish paintings’.

The government office is less of a success, and Seokjin finally relents and calls Sooyoung, who thanks him for trying and promises to take things from here as long as he picks up the grandmothers. They’re a pair, both windowed, and Seokjin barely gets them loaded into a cab before his phone is going off again.

“What do you mean they need me there?” Seokjin asks, frowning and slightly out of breath as he runs through the airport area, looking for another cab. 

“The woman says she doesn’t know what I’m talking about,” Sooyoung says, sounding flustered. “I tried to explain, but they insist they only have your name on file about this. How long until you can get here?”

By the time Seokjin gets back to the government offices, he’s ready to smack something, pasting on a pleasant and calmly negotiating smile for the woman behind the desk. They’re being jerked around, and Seokjin knows at this point, there’s nothing much that will get these people to work with him. “Go back to the resort and make sure everyone is where they’re supposed to be,” he tells Sooyoung, who looks a bit more than flustered.

It takes another hour before the marriage license is finally cleared up, the office woman assuring him he can pick it up the next morning before the wedding. She’d refused point blank to give it to him then, which left him fuming as soon as he finally made it back into the street. The rain has let up, but not much, and when he checks his watch, it’s already past noon.

“Where have you been?” is the first thing out of Yongguk’s mouth when Seokjin gets out of _another_ bumpy cab ride. He’s nauseous, has a headache, has been feeling his irritation rise with every unanswered text he sends to Namjoon and he’s bitten his tongue three more times.

“Busy,” Seokjin answers, trying not to bite as he heads into the resort. The most recent group has just arrived, and Seokjin instinctively rushes to catch a suitcase as it topples towards one of the women.

“Nice!” calls Taehyung’s voice, and Seokjin turns feeling shaky and hot to stare at him as he gives Seokjin a thumbs up. He’s carrying two suitcases, and while usually that would be fine, Taehyung makes it look dangerous. Seokjin realizes _why_ when Taehyung makes to balance them on his shoulder like a waiter’s tray.

“Taehyung!” Seokjin shouts, startling the woman beside him as he goes to grab the suitcases away. Taehyung just laughs, letting Seokjin take the cases from him and ignoring Seokjin’s pointed frown.

“Thanks, those were heavy,” Taehyung says. “I’ll get the other bags.”

“Wait, wha-“ Seokjin chokes as the next moment one of Seulgi’s or Hyosang’s aunts is thanking him and taking his arm, asking him where her room is. “I’m not-“

“This way!” Taehyung chirps, and winks at Seokjin as he holds open an umbrella for the woman, bowing deeply to lead her out to the path. “Come along,” he says, smiling at Seokjin before keeping close to the woman, carrying only the umbrella and the room key. “Hurry along.”

“I’m the best man,” Seokjin protests, feeling angry and frustrated and very, very spread out.

“Oh! You’re Seokjin!” the woman says. “How nice of you to help out with us, I was wondering when I’d finally meet you!”

There’s nothing else for it aside from following along, letting the woman, Seulgi’s aunt, chatter about her life and how she didn’t like Hyosang at all for the longest time.

“Thanks for the help,” Taehyung says as he leaves, and salutes Seokjin before disappearing into the rain, taking the umbrella with him and leaving Seokjin ready to strangle him. This is _not_ the time to be joking around and fooling like this. The last thing Seokjin needs right now is someone joking around and making things harder for him.

“Were you able to get the license?” Sooyoung asks as soon as Seokjin finally makes it back to the parlor. His collar is sticking to his skin, too hot from running around in the humidity and he’s damp from having to dash through the rain to get back here.

“They’re letting me pick it up tomorrow,” Seokjin says, panting slightly from running.

“Pick up what?” Hyosang asks, stepping closer as the parents all mingle with Seulgi at the center.

“One of the documents,” Seokjin says just as Sooyoung says, “the marriage license,” and Seokjin’s pulse jumps.

“The what?” The color from Hyosang’s face drains, and he looks between Seokjin and Sooyoung with wide eyes. “I thought you had it. You told me you had it,” he says, looking at Sooyoung and Seokjin can hear the sudden jump in his voice, recognizing panic instantly.

“It’s okay, we’re figuring it out,” Seokjin says quickly, smiling and taking Hyosang by the shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly. “Trust me.”

“I’m getting _married_ ,” Hyosang says, voice wavering a bit. “ _Tomorrow_ , and I kind of want to make that official and legally binding.”

“I know,” Seokjin says and tries to nod to Sooyoung to tell her to keep Seulgi occupied while he takes care of this. In his pocket, his phone begins buzzing.

“I just heard from Jaehwan, who says he’ll be late too, something about runway issues,” Hoseok calls over from where he’s standing with the other groomsmen. 

“Seokjin, why don’t they have the marriage license?” Hyosang asks, voice painfully even as his eyes flicker between Seokjin’s eyes, searching for stability, reassurance, and calm.

“There was a delay in the paperwork,” Seokjin says as calmly as he can. This is just another job, another mess that he can fix, he can work it out, finding a solution to the problem so the show goes on. That’s what Seokjin _does_. “I took care of it, and I’m picking up the license tomorrow -“

“I’m getting married _tomorrow_ ,” Hyosang’s voice rises in volume and his cheeks get splotchy with red. “Seokjin -“

“ _Before_ the wedding,” Seokijn says a bit more forcefully. “I’m not about to let you go through this whole pomp and circumstance without it being official so -“

“Seokjin.” Someone is tugging at his shoulder.

“Just don’t worry about it, okay? I’m taking care of it,” Seokjin finishes, trying to give Hyosang more confidence than he actually feels about this whole thing.

“Seokjin!” Someone yanks harder at his shoulder, and he turns roughly, his patience running thin.

“What?” he snaps, and immediately feels a mix of exasperation and annoyance as Yerim jumps away from him like he’s bitten her. “What is it?” he tries again, putting on another calm and pleasant smile. His phone buzzes again in his pocket.

“We’re starting the rehearsal, and Sooyoung wanted to make sure you had the rings,” Yerim says, passing Seokjin a small black box.

“You mean you’re not the ring bearer?” he tries to joke, and ends up just getting a confused and vaguely peevish look in return.

“I’m twenty, not ten,” Yerim says, and walks away without another word.

The rehearsal is a lot of standing around and waiting, Seokjin fisting his hands at his sides as his phone keeps vibrating. More people either at the airport or delayed, possible texts from Namjoon, or clients, or anyone else who isn’t here listening to the officiant go through the ceremony at a grueling slow pace.

Finally, after they’ve run the whole thing twice, just for good measure, they’re dismissed and allowed to return to their rooms to change for the rehearsal dinner. Seokjin, instead, finally drags out his phone, scrolling through message after message and feeling the winding coil in his gut getting tighter and tighter.

The florist keeps asking more questions, getting the number of boutonnieres wrong and Seokjin hastily texts her back. There is another flight delayed, holding six guests, and Donghyuk’s flight in New York has been grounded due to snow, which has Seokjin gritting his teeth. There are still people missing for the dinner, he hasn’t had a chance to talk to Hyosang’s father yet about the toasts tonight, Namjoon has _finally_ let him know that the Career Forum is having issues finding translators for the event and is worried about security considering another shooting in the news, and Seokjin -

“Seokjin?”

“What?” Seokjin didn’t mean to yell, but he had, and is breathing too fast when he looks into Seulgi’s shocked face. Hands beginning to shake, he opens his mouth and Seulgi steps back, looking alarmed. “Are you -“

“He’s fine,” cuts a voice in gruffly, as Seokjin is pushed stumbling back. “I’ll take care of him, you talk to Hoseok with whatever it is you need. He looks bored.” Seokjin’s phone is pulled out of his hand, and Seokjin looks down, still stumbling back and out of the way as Yoongi pushes at his chest, a prominent set scowl on his face.

“Stop it,” Seokjin says, recovering from the shock to push back, moving out of Yoongi’s grip.

“No, you fucking stop it,” Yoongi says, and levels him with an angered look before suddenly stepping away, eyes closing, and letting out a short breath. “Look, I get your stressed, we’re all stressed.”

“I’ve been running around all morning,” Seokjin snaps, staring at Yoongi, who was able to lounge in his room this morning playing cuatro while Seokjin was on a schedule. Yoongi, who Seokjin hadn’t even seen up and doing anything until the rehearsal. Yoongi, who keeps staring at him like he’s _disappointed in him_. “I’m not stressed, I’m -“

“You just yelled at the bride, I’d say that means you’re something that isn’t fine,” Yoongi says evenly, as if his voice itself is saying ‘it doesn’t matter’ just to get under Seokjin’s skin. “I know a lot has gone wrong, but -“

“You know? You know _everything_ that’s gone wrong?”

“I’ve been in all the texting threads, so yeah, I have a pretty good idea,” Yoongi shrugs, and Seokjin grits his teeth to keep from shouting.

“Then why aren’t you helping?”

As soon as the words leave Seokjin’s mouth, Yoongi’s eyes harden, and the calm composure slips just enough that Seokjin feels something like satisfaction to get _something_ out of him. “I _have_ been helping,” Yoongi says. “Just not the exact way that you want, or planned, or can see all the time because you’re off overcompensating and -“ Then it’s gone, and Yoongi’s eyes are closing off as he holds back, pulling away from him, farther and farther, like he doesn’t care enough to let Seokjin know. “I am helping, and I’m trying to help right now.”

“I don’t need help,” Seokjin says. It’s automatic, from every job and every project and every time Namjoon had wheedled at him or a competitor had speculated in on an event he was running. Every time someone commented on how he still lived alone, how it had been so long since he’d done a project with a full support team because they were still tight on staff and finances, Seokjin says a variation of ‘I don’t need help’ to get someone to shut up and leave him alone.

As Yoongi’s slightly surprised expression begins to close off, Seokjin gets that feeling again, the one of being left alone, just like he wanted. Yoongi’s expression evens out, though the tension is still there, just under the surface, lingering at the corner of his mouth as he smiles a smile that isn’t real, not like the one Seokjin used to covet. “Well,” he says, and his hands tuck into the pockets of his jeans. “I’m here if you do need help.”

Because it’s hard to believe that, because for so long Seokjin hasn’t been sure if Yoongi really is there, and because right now he can’t tell if Yoongi is saying this because he means it or because he’s trying to shut Seokjin up, he says, “fine,” in a less than amiable tone.

“Fine,” Yoongi repeats, cool and calm, giving a small nod and still wearing that smile. “I’ll also be here to drag out your ass the next time you snap again.”

“Fine,” Seokjin says, a bit harsher. “Not that you need to.”

“I repeat, you just yelled at the bride,” Yoongi says, and though he says it like it’s funny, his eyes are hard, serious. “And that’s not okay.”

“I’ll apologize,” Seokjin says, and steps back, leaving this conversation and pushing down his irritation. He still has to talk to Hyosang’s father about the toasts for tonight and make sure the seating arrangements are set. “It’s fine. I’m taking care of it.”

“Good,” Yoongi says, nodding.

At one of the doorways of the parlor, near the group of family chatting together and the bride and groom, Seokjin can see Taehyung leaning against a doorsill, slouching against the woodwork. As hard as Seokjin tries to avoid him, he ends up getting corralled to him, and stuck while Seulgi talks with Hyosang’s father about something, laughing prettily and looking all the world a happy blushing bride to be. Not at all the kind of person who should be yelled at for no reason, just for startling someone’s running thought spiral.

“You know,” Taehyung says, and smacks something in his mouth. Seokjin turns to glance at him, and recoils slightly as Taehyung blows a _bubble of pink gum_ carelessly. It pops and Taehyung sucks it back into his mouth before turning to look at Seokjin with a sort of lazy patronization. “You’re a pretty shitty best man, you know?”

“It was one thing,” Seokjin says, bristling as Taehyung continues to look at him in that same almost critically examining way. “I’ve done most everything else right.”

“Then stop being so hard on yourself,” Taehyung says before nodding towards the group, leaning closer to Seokjin, entirely unprofessional. “Look, they all look happy and glad to be here even if they were late or stuck in the rain. No one is dead, and no one brought a dead body.”

“What is it with you and dead bodies?” Seokjin asks, turning to him and still feeling offset by the whole thing.

Taehyung shrugs. “Dunno, I guess they’re just things you wouldn’t expect to see, even if they are perfectly normal.”

“Normal?”

“Technically, all of us are dead bodies, just waiting to happen,” Taehyung says with a sigh, arms crossing over his chest. “Actually, we’ve already died a few times, some more than others, and we’re not even in the same bodies we were born in, all those cells dead and gone. Which kind of puts things in perspective.”

“How?” Seokjin asks, watching as Seulgi laughs at something Hyosang’s father says as she’s joined by her fiancé, Hyosang’s arm slipping easily around her waist.

“If we’re all just dead bodies waiting to happen, then why focus on the stuff that’s got nothing to do with what really matters?” Taehyung asks. “Like sleep, and eating, and talking to interesting people or telling someone a secret every day?”

“You tell someone a secret every day?”

“It can’t be the same person and it has to be personal,” Taehyung says with a nod. “That way I have little bits of myself growing in people’s brains.”

“That’s gross,” Seokjin says, grimacing at the thought as Hyosang leans in and kisses Seulgi at the temple, getting a laugh but then a warm sweet smile from her. 

“I think it’s cool,” Taehyung says, and smiles at him. “You want to know a secret?”

“No.”

“I used to play the saxophone, and was in a band, but got scared when I realized how many other people played the saxophone better than I did,” Taehyung says anyway and smiles so his cheeks round up. It makes him look much less visually poignant but also much harder to take seriously.

“What were you afraid of?” Seokjin asks, and subtly notices the irritation has lessened just a bit, his breathing slowed and the crawl under his skin still there, but not as terrible. His thoughts have slowed down, he realizes.

“That I’d never be good enough to be worth something,” Taehyung says, and smiles again.

“That’s depressing,” Seokjin says, and almost feels bad for Taehyung.

“Yeah,” Taehyung says and then laughs. “But then I realized it didn’t matter if I was the best at something if it didn’t make me happy, because at the end of everything, when you’re about to be a dead body, you don’t care about if you were the best at playing the saxophone. You care about if you were happy.”

As Seulgi leans up to kiss Hyosang’s cheek in return, and gets instead caught in a full kiss that leaves both of them smiling as Hyosang’s mother coos and his father laughs too loudly for the room, Seokjin watches and thinks he understands what Taehyung means.  
  



	10. Chapter 10

★☆★

The rehearsal dinner isn’t as formal as Seokjin had prepared for.

“Just jackets are fine,” Hyosang had laughed when he’d found that Seokjin had brought extra ties for _all_ the groomsmen, just in case. “But you can wear a tie if you want to.”

Instead, all the groomsmen are in white collar and jackets, Seokjin’s own one he often wears to work meetings, a crisp white shirt with a light and comfortable black jacket to accompany it. The dinner itself goes well, Seokjin and Soojung making sure everyone is in their proper seats, directing people according to the layout Hyosang, Seulgi, and Sooyoung had decided on prior. Seokjin is seated a few seats down from Hyosang, Hyosang’s mother and father and then sister, who sits at Seokjin’s left, between them. It helps him keep an eye on the table, talking with Seulgi’s aunt, who sits across from him, and with Hoseok, who sits beside him.

For the most part, dinner goes well. The rain had finally stopped about an hour before dinner, when Seokjin was checking on all the groomsmen to make sure they were ready. Sangdo was still sick from _something_ he’d eaten during the bachelor’s party, but seemed to be able to hold down food and Yoongi had shown up with enough medicine Seokjin actually had asked how he hadn’t been stopped at customs. Yoongi had just shrugged and shown his therapist license and a few doctors notes.

Though at the time, Seokjin had wanted to ask, he’d held his tongue, figuring he could ask later, when there was time. After the wedding maybe, when he doesn’t feel the ticking of the clock with every pulse of his heart, counting down.

Dinner goes well, everyone chatting and laughing, the food delicious from the selected entrees and something for everyone to enjoy. They’re all afforded one of the wines, which Hyosang ends up asking for a few more bottles of and laughing, saying he’ll cover the cost. It’s about midway through dinner that Seokjin looks up as one of the waiters leans over him to pour his wine, and nearly jerks out of his chair.

“Don’t do that, I’ll pour wine on you on accident,” Taehyung says, and grins widely as he leans too close, close enough that Seokjin can smell sunscreen and salt on him. His heart is already beating a bit too fast as he frowns, looking up at Taehyung’s smile.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, trying to keep his voice low.

“Getting people drunk,” Taehyung says, and shrugs as he steps back, Seokjin’s glass filled too full, well above the regular amount as is custom for restaurants like this. “Jeongguk had a thing, so I told him I’d cover.” Taehyung points at his chest, where the gold nametag reading ‘JEONGGUK’ glints in the ambiance lighting of the room.

“Just-“ Seokjin looks around, swallowing down the nervous lump in his throat. Everyone here is in fine dinner attire, satins and silks and all extremely expensive to clean. “Can you do that? With being transferred and-“

“Don’t worry, I used to be told I was as graceful as a ballerina,” Taehyung says, and as Seokjin watches him walk away and down the table, he gives a little dangerous hop as if to prove his point, turning to grin cheekily at Seokjin. It doesn’t reassure him _at all_.

“Who was that?” Hoseok asks, turning to him as Seokjin returns to his meal.

“No one,” Seokjin says automatically, focusing on his food and briefly glancing at Sooyoung in the corner, watching everything and waiting to give cues on time. 

“I’ve seen what no one looks like and that definitely looked like a someone,” Hoseok says. “He even winked at you.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it was a facial twitch,” Seokjin says, and Hoseok just stares, clearly unamused. “Never mind.”

“It just seems like he knows you,” Hoseok says.

“Hoseok, let it go,” Seokjin says, leaning back as a different waiter comes to take his plate away. Toasts are going to start soon, and Seokjin is supposed to lead them and keep things moving.

“It’s just weird to be on a chit chat basis with a waiter in a resort in the middle of the Caribbean,” Hoseok says, and gives him a sort of leering smile. “I mean, I don’t remember a lot from the bachelor’s party but-“ Hoseok suddenly gasps, eyes going wide. “He’s _that guy_.”

“I have to give a toast, Hoseok,” Seokjin says shortly, trying to cut this conversation off. Glancing up and towards Sooyoung, he catches sight of Taehyung making faces by the doorway and the automatic response of visceral _don’t do that_ has him slamming his knee against the underside of the table. Hissing, Seokjin glares at Taehyung, who is openly laughing at him silently from where he’s half hiding behind a plant.

Seokjin is _not_ amused.

“He’s that guy who accidentally spilled soup on you!” Hoseok says, sounding delighted, like he’s just discovered something wonderful rather than reminded Seokjin of a traumatic event. Knee throbbing, Seokjin can only half grimace a smile at him in response. “I thought you were going to commit _murder_.”

“Keep talking and maybe I will,” Seokjin says, smile locked. Out of the corner of his eye, he can still see Taehyung laughing at him. Doing his best to ignore him, Seokjin reaches for his wine, trying to get the glass down to a more reasonable volume for the actual toast. The cabernet is a good one, and Seokjin lets out a breath after swallowing, trying to calm his nerves and hoping the wine helps some.

So far, the dinner has been going well, but through the whole thing Seokjin’s phone has been vibrating in his pocket. He’d had to cut off a conversation with Jia short earlier about the Career Forum in order to make sure Sangdo was alright. It has Seokjin on edge, knowing that he’s supposed to be ‘off duty’ which therefore means something must be _really_ wrong for Jia to be contacting him.

“Seokjin.” A tap to his hand has Seokjin turning, startled out of his thoughts to look around Hoseok. On Hoseok’s other side, Yoongi is looking at him pointedly. “Toast,” he says, and it’s then that Seokjin notices Sooyoung nodding to him.

Standing, Seokjin takes his wineglass and one of the spoons lying at his place setting. The chime of the glass rings though the room, calling attention to everyone seated. Seokjin clears his throat, and the speech he’d written and memorized floats to the forefront of his mind. It’s not quite like speaking to a room of businessmen and clients, but it’s similar, quickly introducing the first toast for Hyosang’s father, who stands to applause.

The waiters drift back into the room, holding wine bottles for those who need more in their glasses to toast for the bride and groom. Seokjin half listens, watching the waiters and Sooyoung from the corner of his eye as he sits beside Hoseok. He raises his glass when Hyosang’s father finishes, and toasts his best friend and his bride with a smile before standing himself.

Eight months seem to condense into the two minutes that he stands there, the preparation and planning and the last seven years that he’s know Hyosang and Seulgi were together. All that time evaporates down into a two minute speech Seokjin had written out multiple times before he got it right, and it feels almost surreal, superficial, to just put so much time into two minutes of talking.

But then it’s over, and Seokjin is raising his glass to cue everyone, and drinking to his best friend getting married the next day to a woman he’ll live with for the rest of his life. It’s over, and Seokjin is drinking his wine, moving to sit once more as Soojung rises to make her own toast.

“That was great,” Hoseok tells him in a leaned in whisper as Seokjin takes his seat again. “I could almost hear the canned laughter at your attempted jokes.”

“I’m glad the effect wasn’t lost,” Seokjin says with a humoring smile at Hoseok’s jab. His phone vibrates again, and Seokjin frowns, taking another sip of wine without thinking.

“Is that your phone?”

“I’m not taking it out,” Seokjin says, voice leaving no room for argument.

“You couldn’t leave your phone in your room for just a few hours?” Hoseok asks, sounding incredulous.

“I haven’t taken it out or touched it or -“

“Shut up,” Yoongi hisses, voice low and Seokjin’s mouth snaps closed as Hoseok shrinks back, looking appropriately accosted. Yoongi isn’t even looking at them, his eyes on Soojung as she speaks, a kind and pleasant smile playing about his lips. It changes him completely from how Seokjin has seen him most of the day, making him softer, kinder, gentle.

It’s a look Seokjin used to see, and hasn’t seen for a long time, at least not directed towards him. _”You’re right, I don’t care.”_ The thing is, Seokjin knows it’s a lie, remembering it from years ago when Yoongi would say the same thing with an indifferent shrug, but he always remembered the small things, like leaving sticky notes on Seokjin’s desk with little messages. He remembered the big things, like how Seokjin didn’t really do birthdays or holidays but Yoongi still always did something every December fourth, like pay for all his meals and transport, or get little treats and things he knew Seokjin liked.

Yoongi did care, just not about the same things Seokjin did, and in different ways than Seokjin did. Seokjin looked at everything all at once, and Yoongi looked at pieces, often times putting off the big picture, but when he did look, it was with all of himself.

It was overwhelming, and intense, and used to be calming, comforting, and reassuring because Seokjin knew what it meant. Now, he doesn’t, and it leaves him feeling sicker than one of the long bumpy cab rides to the resort.

“Slow down,” Hoseok says in a hushed whisper and Seokjin turns to him, swallowing another mouthful of his wine before reaching to put his glass back.

“Allow me,” someone says behind him, startling him, and Seokjin jerks just as a hand and a bottle neck appear over his shoulder. Letting out a surprised high gasp, Seokjin’s hand jerks, and hits the new ‘helping hand’ and something hits his arm right before glass shatters and something hits Seokjin in the chest _hard_.

“Man, your lap is just a magnet or something,” says that familiar voice, sounding impressed as the screech of Seokjin’s chair being hastily pushed away from the table cuts through the room. Staring down at the floor, Seokjin watches the wine bottle roll away under the table, leaving a small stream of cabernet behind it that runs a path straight up Seokjin’s leg and torso before ending in a dark stain right in the center of his chest.

“You’ve look like you’ve been shot,” someone says, but Seokjin can hardly hear them, staring down at his chest as his ears begin to fill with buzzing, breath heating in his chest as he feels the cold wine seep against his skin.

“Sorry,” Taehyung says, and Seokjin looks up at him. None of the familiar calm of the ocean washes in his chest, only the scratch of irritation, sandpaper against his bones. “But like I said, our laundry services-“

“Shut up.” Taehyung is pushed out of the way by another hand just as Seokjin stands, breath faster. He needs to get out, away. 

“Bathroom is right down the hall,” says Hoseok says immediately. “Carry on, Soojung! We just had a wardrobe malfunction.”

The toasts are interrupted, right in the middle of Soojung’s and Seokjin turns to look at Hyosang, at Seulgi and Soojung and the parents with a wine stain bullet in his chest and can’t breathe. Hyosang nods just as a hand closes around Seokjin’s wrist and without a word, Seokjin is rushing from the room, dragged by the hand at his wrist.

It’s just as they’re passing the corner of the table he looks up to see the back of the other man’s head, full strawberry soft pink and Seokjin immediately wrenches his hand free. Startled, Yoongi turns to him, looking impatient but worried. “I’m trying to help,” Yoongi says, but doesn’t grab for Seokjin’s hand again. “That wine is gonna set really fast.”

And even if Seokjin has barely said one word to Yoongi since this afternoon, he pushes that to the side, shaking his head as he feels wine slosh in his shoe. “Come on,” Seokjin says, and pushes ahead.

They burst into the bathroom, Seokjin heading directly to the sink and shucking his jacket, tossing it to the side of the counter before hastily unbuttoning his shirt. Yoongi works beside him, turning on the tap and testing the water. “Did you get salt?” Seokjin asks, careful with his shirt to not get more wine on the white areas and spread the stain. It’s already down half of his shirt, and he knows he has to act fast.

“Salt?” Yoongi asks, looking up with a confused frown.

“Yes, salt,” Seokjin snaps. “The best the to use with wine stains like this? Did you get some?”

“Oh, sure, I just made sure to get all the salt shakers off the table before we booked it out of the dining room,” Yoongi drawls as the water runs loudly beside him. “ _Of course_ , the first thing I’d grab would be salt.”

“Well, I can’t go get it,” Seokjin snaps, standing with one arm still in his shirt, the rest hanging off of him as he glares at Yoongi. This is a mess, _he’s_ a mess, and he just needs _salt_ before this stain sets in.

Yoongi gives a short shake of his head before pushing past Seokjin and out of the bathroom, leaving him to finish pulling his shirt off to lay out on the counter. Most of the stain is on the left side, but it’s dark and runs all the way down to where it had been tucked into Seokjin’s slacks. Agitatedly reaching over and turning off the running faucet, Seokjin grabs a few of the paper napkins behind the cloth resort hand towels, trying to blot out as much wine as he can.

“There,” startles behind him as Seokjin bends over his shirt, getting more and more frustrated as he works, knowing he’s missing the dinner, and missing everything, and messing up. At least four salt shakers clunk down in front of Seokjin’s nose and startle him to jerk back. “Good, or do you need more salt?”

“Fine,” Seokjin says, and grabs a shaker. “Can you help me?” he asks, leaning over the shirt’s large stain and unscrewing the cap of the salt shaker.

“Are you sure?” Yoongi asks just as the cap comes off the shaker and dumps salt into Seokjin’s fumbling fingers.

“ _Yes_ ,” Seokjin snaps and straightens up to glare at Yoongi. “I’m _asking_ you to help me, because you’re here, unless you’d rather just _stand_ there and watch me do all the work.”

“I _am_ here to help,” Yoongi says, and his usually calmer voice rises with an edge. “I just - fine, look, give me the damn salt, if it even works.”

Dropping his salt shaker and letting the contents spill over his shirt, Seokjin stands with a deep inhale, feeling his temper burn hot as Yoongi stares back. “Do you have any idea how many wine stains I’ve had to get out?”

“No,” Yoongi says flatly. “But I trust you enough to think you know what you’re doing, otherwise I wouldn’t have just grabbed four fucking salt shakers and brought them in here.” He turns away, ignoring Seokjin’s look, and begins to pour salt over the stain. “How does this work exactly.”

“It absorbs the wine over time,” Seokjin says, grabbing another saltshaker and unscrewing the cap. “You have to spread it over the - you’re doing it wrong.”

Letting out a frustrated huff, Yoongi drops the saltshaker and steps back. “Fine,” he says, and holds up his hands as if to give up. “What do you want me to do then?”

“Help me!”

“I just _tried_ that, but -“

“No, you didn’t!” Seokjin snaps, and pours more salt over the stain, trying to spread it out but his hands are shaking. “You just barely listened to me and then gave up as soon as it got hard. Just like you always do.”

“I what?” Yoongi’s voice darkens, but Seokjin doesn’t care, trying too hard to not let his hands shake in frustration as he spreads the salt.

“As soon as something gets too hard, you just walk away from it, rather than trying,” Seokjin bites out, and twists off another cap from a saltshaker aggressively. “And then all the work falls to someone else, _me_.” Looking up from his shirt, Yoongi is glaring at him, an intense frown on his face. “Leave if you want to.”

“Stop doing that,” Yoongi says, voice shaking slightly.

“I’m _trying_ to keep my shirt from being ruined!”

“I mean stop pushing me away and wording it like I’m the one who’s leaving!” Yoongi says loudly, countering Seokjin’s raised voice.

“You _were_ the one that left!” Seokjin yells, and straightens up, one of the saltshakers crashing to the floor to shatter glass and salt everywhere. “You were _always_ the first one to leave! Whether it was from dinners or events or trips or _anything_ you just balked off responsibility and left it for others to pick up, for _me_ to figure out.

“I’ve been working for _years_ with people who all try to keep in contact, who operate through plans and making sure things get done and communicate rather than ignore texts or calls just because they felt like it. They fucking _cared_ enough to answer their damn phone.”

“Your clients aren’t your friends, Seokjin,” Yoongi says, and the way he says it, like Seokjin is the one who doesn’t understand, just makes Seokjin angrier. “People who pay you for your company aren’t your friends.”

“But Hoseok and Hyosang can answer their damn phones,” Seokjin argues. “Hoseok has spent more time on his phone trying to make sure Donghyuk can get a flight here tomorrow and make it on time for the wedding. You were _with_ Donghyuk, and you couldn’t take care of that?”

“I didn’t know the airlines were going to strike,” Yoongi says flatly. “I found out when I landed. There’s nothing I could do.”

“No, you _chose_ to do nothing,” Seokjin snaps. “Just like you choose to not bother with most anything, where you don’t care, can’t make a damn decision and it’s exhausting, you know that? Constantly having to choose for someone and make all the decisions and make sure everything is right because they can’t do it themselves. It’s so tiring but I have to do it anyway because no one else fucking will.”

“That’s life,” Yoongi says cooly. “Life is tiring, and it’s your choice to keep doing things that -“

“I don’t have a choice!” Seokjin yells. “Who is going to take care of all my clients if I just stop? Who will be there when the marriage license fucks up in paperwork, or when the group gets lost on the side of a damn mountain and it’s almost dark and Junmyeon is dehydrated? I never saw _you_ stepping up to the plate.”

Yoongi just watches him yell, frowning but silent, just taking the anger Seokjin throws at him from years of overwork, too many late nights and not enough weekends out. Too many difficult clients, messed up confused phone calls, and Friday night dinners where Seokjin felt like he was slowly becoming more and more the third wheel to Yoongi and Namjoon’s friendship, isolated and forgotten.

It used to be every week, then Seokjin got too busy and hadn’t scheduled a week, and they hadn’t met up for almost a month until Namjoon relayed that Yoongi wanted to know when they were meeting up again. Like it was Seokjin’s job to do all of that, Yoongi just reaping the benefits.

It had been years since the sticky notes with little Mario figures drawn on them.

“Was I supposed to do something?” Yoongi asks. “I can’t do something if you can’t tell me how to help you.”

“Stop trying to make this my fault,” Seokjin snaps. It _isn’t_. It’s not his fault he’s alone, he’s just adapted to know that it’s easier this way. He only has to worry about himself if something goes wrong.

If.

“This isn’t my fault!”

“I never said it was anyone’s fault!” Yoongi says, and his voice rises in pitch again, composure wavering from just listening with no fuel to Seokjin’s fire. “I’m not your enemy, Seokjin! I’m your friend!”

“Then why don’t you act like one?” Seokjin shouts back.

“What the Hell do you think this is?” Yoongi snarls, gesturing to the mess that is Seokjin’s shirt, covered in wine stains and upended salt. “Why do you think I’m here? Because I feel like it? Because I’m fucking _bored_? Because I can promise you that if I wasn’t your fucking friend I’d still be back in the dining room letting you salt your own damn shirt.”

“Then go!” Seokjin yells. “If you’d rather be there, then go! I’m not keeping you here, _you_ have a choice, you can just pretend like it doesn’t matter like you always do, ignoring the people around you, and –“

“Stop projecting your own issues on me, I’m not the one who keeps pushing you away!” Yoongi shouts over Seokjin, slamming a hand down on the counter with a bang that has Seokjin stepping back.

“I’m not -“

“When was the last time you really spent the time to catch up with Hyosang? Or visit him out in California?” Yoongi speaks over him. “When was the last time you spent time with Namjoon and Sunyoung, actually getting to _know_ her?”

“I can’t just drop work and go anywhere I please just because I want to see a friend,” Seokjin defends. “I don’t have a job where I can just- “

“You don’t even know what I do!” Yoongi shouts, and his voice cracks. “Shut the fuck up about my job, you’ve never even asked me what I do.”

“You never tell me!”

“Because you never ask!” Yoongi says. “For all your crap about how I never talk to you, I haven’t heard from you in weeks, unless you count group texts for this, which were all just technical and steeped and professionalism.”

“You never answered any of them,” Seokjin says, frowning. “It was a miracle if you’d even show up.”

“Why bother!” Yoongi laughs, and the sound echoes horribly off the tiles of the bathroom as he steps away from Seokjin.

“Exactly,” Seokjin almost sneers, watching as Yoongi steps back. “Why bother, right? Who cares?” Yoongi’s frown stiffens, his face darkening. If feels a bit like throwing up, awful and under it all, Seokjin just wants it to stop, knowing this dry heave of words one after another is nothing but bitter anguish, but he can’t stop them from pouring out of his mouth. “It must be nice not to care about anything.”

Years of waiting for calls, for returned emails, for someone else to be the one to reach out first and remind him that they’re there burn at the back of Seokjin’s throat. Years of nothing, where once there were small snacks and treats left on his desk even if Yoongi doesn’t like sweets.

“Fuck you,” Yoongi says, and is suddenly pulling away, walking from Seokjin and the bathroom counter in a storm. “Just - fuck this. I’m not enabling this anymore.”

As Yoongi reaches the door, jerking it open, Seokjin turns to him, a final wretch in his stomach to end it all and be free. “It’s nice to know I was right.”

Yoongi turns to him, and looks tired and angry and there’s suddenly no wall in front of his eyes, and they burn with something Seokjin had not been expecting; pity. “If that makes you happy, then go ahead and keep believing it.”

The door swings closed and there’s no slam, the hinge supported so the door closes slowly, gently. Seokjin wishes it had slammed, had ended this and he wasn’t left in just the dead silence where Yoongi hadn’t denied it, and Seokjin was right.

The thing about winning an argument like this is that Seokjin doesn’t feel triumphant. Instead, shaking just like after being sick, Seokjin just feels raw, drained, and miserable. Just like after being sick, Seokjin’s throat burns, his eyes following, and it’s as he catches his reflection in the mirror that he realizes he’s crying.

Immediately raising his hands to wipe away the tears furiously, Seokjin yelps, the residual salt on his fingers getting in his eyes, making him cry harder and he stumbles to the sink, trying to get water. It burns, and he shakes, and nothing feels right or okay or like he did anything other than feel even worse.

Splashing water onto his face and feeling the cool water against his heated skin, Seokjin knows that a lot of what he said, the anger and the frustration and the barbed words weren’t really meant for Yoongi. Despite how Seokjin is still not sure why he can’t let go of the small infractions from the past where it just feels like Yoongi had left him behind, this wasn’t one of them.

Eyes clear and panting as he stands over the sink, Seokjin looks up at his reflection. Hair wet from the water, face splotched red and eyes puffy as he still cries, unable to stop the tears that keep coming for no reason, Seokjin frowns, grimacing at his reflection. He looks pathetic really, standing, crying, in the bathroom with no good reason, shirtless as his dress shirt lies on the counter, half salted and probably ruined. 

What’s worse is that he still feels like there’s more to throw up, and the longer he stays in the bathroom, the more awkward things will be. Going back to the rehearsal dinner without a shirt and only his jacket isn’t something he can do, and he almost doesn’t want to go back in, not sure if he’s able to keep his composure.

That’s the biggest thing that’s scaring him, and maybe that’s why he’s crying, because Seokjin just feels _off_ , like he’s been unraveling for a while. Slowly, he’s been pulled apart by the seams by thousands of little fingers all needing something from him to the point that he’s all frayed ends just waiting to get snagged and irritated.

This isn’t how he wants to be, and it makes him even more frustrated, teeth grit to hold back a yell of vexation as his hands curl into fists against the marble. But there isn’t a solution, a quick fix or a solution, and Seokjin can only right now try to make do with what he has.

It’ll be impossible to go back to the rehearsal dinner without a shirt, so Seokjin needs to get one, to get back to his room and change. That means getting past the parlor, which ends up being blocked by servers carting in dessert and drinks. Wearing his ruined shirt hastily buttoned, knowing his appearance could be much better, Seokjin ducks around the back, only to come out near one of the rear entrances of the resort leading down to the beach.

Walking along hastily through the wet sand towards the main lawn, Seokjin hears the argument in his head, if it could even be called that, between himself and Yoongi from earlier. It comes back in snippets, words that stung and most of them from his own mouth, and Seokjin shakes his head as he feels hot tears at the corners of his eyes. He’s not sad, he’s not -

“Hey!” shouts from near the waves, and Seokjin looks up just in time to see someone running towards him. There is a brief moment where he could run, knowing he’s in no condition to be seen right now, but then the person’s face catches the light, and the anger that had died in Seokjin’s chest suddenly roars back.

“You,” he says, and suddenly is running too, pace picking up in the heavy sand and suddenly Taehyung’s open smile falls and he lets out a shriek, turning and running straight for the ocean with Seokjin hot on his heels. “You _asshole!_ ”

Seokjin hates profanity, and hates even more that he doesn’t give a damn right now because if any time called for profanity, now is one of them. 

“It was an accident!” Taehyung shouts, sprinting into the crashing waves as Seokjin splashes in after him. “We all make mistakes! I was just trying to refill your wineglass. You were drinking that stuff like a man dying of thirst.”

“You’re not supposed to just reach for someone’s fucking wine glass when they’re holding it!” Seokjin is yelling, trying to run through the knee deep water after Taehyung, who keeps ahead of him by doing some sort of galloping stride that looks extremely complicated and tiring. “What kind of training did you have? You’re the worst waiter I’ve ever seen!”

“I’m not a waiter, I’m a busboy,” Taehyung shouts, and Seokjin just stops to stare at him. “I like to switch tags with some of the other waiters though, and bartenders, just so see what’s up. Tonight was low staff, so -“ Without warning, Taehyung turns and suddenly screams out over the open water, the sound shattering into Seokjin’s chest and burning.

It’s riddled with the same sort of bottled up frustration and insecurity that Seokjin feels, though when it ends, the feeling fades, and Taehyung turns to him with a smile, relieved.

“Your turn,” Taehyung says.

“I’m going to strangle you,” Seokjin growls as another wave crashes against his knees. He can feel sand filling into his shoes, and for once he doesn’t care.

He _just doesn’t care_.

“Scream first,” Taehyung says. “It’s my dying wish.”

Seokjin ignores him, instead lunging for him, and shouts in frustration as Taehyung springs out of reach with a yelp and Seokjin pitches into the water. It tastes to strongly of salt, clogging his throat as sand he struggles to keep his balance. Almost completely soaked, Seokjin staggers up and screams in frustration.

He screams and screams and shakes with his hands balled at his sides until his throat feels raw. When he runs out of breath, he gulps it down, feeling the water stick his clothing, to his skin in sticky salty itch and he turns out towards the horizon where the moon has just begun to rise and screams again, louder, harder, until there’s nothing left.

“Yes!” Taehyung is whooping, and Seokjin belatedly realizes he is leaping around him, arms waving like he’s cheering Seokjin on. “Get it out! Keep going! You’re doing great!”

“Shut up!” Seokjin bellows at him.

“No!” Taehyung crows, and kicks up a spray of water. “Don’t stop!”

“What is wrong with you?” Seokjin shouts at him, watching as Taehyung tries to run and gets caught in a wave, nearly collapsing into the water.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Taehyung laughs, and stands to look at him like Seokjin is the weird one. “I’m fine, I’m happy and healthy and have a beautiful brain and am standing in the ocean on a gorgeous night with a friend.”

“I’m not your _friend_.”

Taehyung’s head cocks to the side, and he asks, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world, “why not? I think you’re my friend. What’s so bad about having a friend?”

“But -“

“You stopped screaming,” Taehyung interrupts. “You weren’t done.” When Seokjin glares, Taehyung bends down and suddenly flings water at him with his hands. “Come on!” 

“Stop!” Seokjin shouts, trying to dodge and getting caught in a wave as it rolls against his legs.

“Let it out! Let go of all those war cries!” Another sudden wave of water crashes as Taehyung splashes him and Seokjin lets out another furious yell. It’s different, harder, and stronger, and Seokjin yells until his back aches, curling over into the water as it rushes towards him. He can hear Taehyung yelling beside him, and gulping down breaths when they run out before he does it again.

“Why are you yelling?”

“I’m angry!” Seokjin yells, and then yells wordlessly once more, kicking at a wave as it threatens to crash into him. “I’m tired, and angry, and frustrated, and I feel like I’m doing way more than I was supposed to on this trip and sometimes I don’t want to do it all!”

“Damn straight!”

“I don’t care what people think, I have been working too hard and too long and too much to have them trying to tell me I don’t know what I’m doing,” Seokjin shouts, turning to Taehyung. “You don’t know me.”

“Nope!”

“I’m not trying to push people away, I just don’t have time for what they want from me!” Seokjin shouts. “I don’t have time to take care of them when I barely have time to take care of myself!”

It rings over the water, Seokjin stands as the waves crash against his legs as the soft cascade of what can only be explained as epiphany washes over him. There’s nothing left to yell, and he’s done, clean, and it’s enough.

“Wow,” says Taehyung, water swirling around his knees and dripping from his bangs. “That’s sad.”

“Yeah,” Seokjin says, throat hoarse and hurting but at the end he feels something light and jumping. “It is,” he says, and lets out small laugh.

“Like, I thought it was sad when you kept refusing to use the laundry, but man, that’s really sad,” Taehyung says, and barks out a laugh, pulling more laughter from Seokjin.

It’s strange, because really Seokjin doesn’t actually think it’s all that funny, but just like the screams and yells over the ocean waters had seemed to be pushed out of him, dragging like a clog in a drain, needed to be ripped out of him, these are the same. Unlike yelling though, it almost feels like the laughter is just pouring out of him, rising up to fill the space emptied by the frustration and anger and irritation. They rise, louder and fuller than the last, pouring out of him and he can’t stop, trying to dodge when Taehyung splashes him with water and it only makes him laugh harder.

Laughing and laughing until he’s breathless and can’t even stop when Taehyung lunges at him, tackling him and dragging him beneath the waves. As his head plunges beneath the water, Seokjin isn’t angry, water filling his mouth and plugging his ears. Instead, breaking to the surface to gasp for air, it only leaves him feeling oddly clean, like he’s just had poison dragged out of him.

As Taehyung hauls him to his feet, Seokjin knows it would be easy to grab him, to shove him down into the water for the headaches he’s caused. He doesn’t though, instead taking in Taehyung as he shakes his head violently, hair flying wildly and spraying water everywhere.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” Seokjin asks finally when Taehyung straightens up again.

Taehyung stands, frowning out at the horizon with his mouth hanging open, as if suddenly remember and thinking hard on the subject. Then he turns to Seokjin, flashes him a guilty smile and says, “oops.”

Seokjin laughs, and kicks water towards him, knowing that now more than ever he needs to be back to his room and change. Though now, even if he’s soaked and won’t look at all presentable for the rehearsal dinner, he feels like he can go back, that it’s okay.

He’ll be okay.

“You need to get back, too,” Taehyung says, shaking his head to try to get water out of his ear. “Strawberry cabbage patch looked rough when I saw him earlier.”

“Who?” Seokjin laughs, following Taehyung back out of the water and to the beach. His shoes are ruined, along with his pants and definitely his shirt, no amount of resort laundry service able to save them. 

“Your friend with the pink hair,” Taehyung says. “The one who looks always like he’s trying to start fires with his brain.”

Seokjin snorts, realizing who Taehyung is talking about. “Yeah, we, um,” he takes a breath, and unease settles into his stomach with a twist of guilt. “We had an argument.”

“I’m sorry,” Taehyung says, and Seokjin pauses to stare at him. 

“I think that’s the first time I’ve actually heard you apologize properly.”

When Taehyung turns to him, he looks genuinely sad, like he truly feels bad for Seokjin. “Yeah, but that really hurts when you fight with someone you care about,” he says, and reaches to pat Seokjin on the shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he repeats.

It takes a while, both of them just walking back up the beach in silence before Seokjin realizes his reply, and says, “me too.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I am sorry this is where it ends at the moment, but the rest will be posted as soon as possible as real life permits. Happy birthday once again, dear recipient!


	11. Chapter 11

★☆★

The rehearsal dinner is over by the time Seokjin walks back into the resort, the room itself being cleared up by staff. Immediately, one of the staff is on Taehyung, pulling him away with a snappish tone. Taehyung casts Seokjin a look that’s half rolled eyes and almost a smile as he lets himself get dragged off amid a scolding.

This time, Seokjin knows he deserves it, and knows Taehyung might get either docked pay or lose his position, but doesn’t feel the same concern or worry. A part of him kind of knows it’ll be okay, something about how Taehyung holds himself telling him not to worry. It’ll be okay.

“I have to admit, it’s a new look,” Hyosang says as Seokjin finds him outside the room talking with his parents and Sooyoung. He’s smiling though, none of the disappointment or annoyance Seokjin had prepared himself for. Taehyung was right earlier today about him being a pretty poor example of a best man today, and this dinner was a prime example. “I don’t hate it though, almost like you’re trying to shoot for model chic, sand and all.”

“I’m sorry,” Seokjin says sincerely as Hyosang steps away from his family. “For today, and especially the dinner.”

“What even happened?” Hyosang asks, looking him up and down. “Seulgi said someone spilled wine on you, but I thought you were with Yoongi when you two disappeared.”

“I was,” Seokjin says, nodding as another pang of guilt joins the soft collection in his gut. “It’s a little complicated,” he finishes just as Hyosang starts to laugh, clapping him on the soggy shoulder. Hyosang, surprisingly, doesn’t look mad at all, if anything amused, perhaps a little confused, but he’s still laughing.

It’s not at all the reaction Seokjin had expected, and knows if this had been most anyone else’s rehearsal dinner, this sort of thing would be met with anger mixed with a heaping dose of stress and anxiety. Yet Hyosang is standing there, shaking his hand off a bit from Seokjin’s soaked shirt, and laughing.

“You’re not mad?” Seokjin asks.

“Honestly, I know that I probably should be,” Hyosang says, and crosses his arms lightly over his chest. “But at the same time, I’m actually kind of glad to see you do something like this. It’s been ages since I heard or saw you doing something outlandish like disappearing from the room and showing up looking like you just walked out of the ocean.”

“That is actually what I did,” Seokjin says, feeling a laugh at the back of his words and for once just letting it go. He laughs, and Hyosang joins him, shaking his head at him in disbelief.

“I’m sure it’s a story I’d love to hear,” Hyosang says. “But not right now. I’m actually still confused, and not sure what’s going on with you, but it’s kind of fun, you know?”

“Fun?”

“Kind of brings back memories,” Hyosang says, voice turning fond. “From the old days when we’d just decide to go off in the middle of studying or whatever and go do something fun. Remember that time we skipped our astronomy final to go help Namjoon test out his hovercraft on that swamp?”

Actually, Seokjin had completely forgotten, but as soon as Hyosang mentions it, the memory comes flooding back to him, and he laughs, Hyosang joining him. It had been a total disaster, the project Namjoon had done for his physics class ending up with himself, Hyosang, Yoongi and Namjoon all knee deep in mud and up to their elbows in swamp water as the ‘hovercraft’ growled, wedged and deflating, stuck between two swamp trees twenty feet away. The whole thing had been ridiculous, and all of them somehow had the greatest time. They’d talked about it for years, kind of the inside joke among the group that someone could trigger laughter just by saying, “is it mayfly season yet?”

To anyone who hadn’t been there or involved at the time, this makes no sense, but to them -

“I forgot about the disaster of the Mayfly,” Seokjin laughs, recalling Namjoon’s failed hovercraft that had affectionately earned the name ‘Mayfly’ considering it only ‘lived’ for a day.

“How can you forget about that, it’s a _classic_ ,” Hyosang laughs and shakes his head, still smiling as he quiets. “But that sort of stuff, where we were just having fun and I wouldn’t know if it would be me or you or Donghyuk showing up and suggesting we go on some half baked idea to probably get ourselves killed, that’s more important to me than you missing the end of my rehearsal dinner. It’s just good to have you back.”

It hits Seokjin then just how out of touch with Hyosang he’s been. Granted, it’s hard to keep in touch with his best friend when they live on opposite sides of the country, but it’s more than just distance. In the last few years, Seokjin hadn’t realized it, but he’d begun to forget about things like this, like how just as much as Hyosang would get up to these crazy adventures and projects, he would too.

The reason Yoongi would leave post its on his desk was because Seokjin would too, reminders of meetings or suggestions to get dinner together or letting him know he’d been dragged out with Hyosang and Jaehwan to go moonlight hiking to laze around under the stars. The reason they’d all gone camping eight years ago wasn’t just because Seokjin hadn’t done it much, but because that was just part of the stuff they did: go on adventures.

Over time, over the years, Seokjin had forgotten about that part of himself, too many schedules and meetings and demands of a busy life in a busy world to have time for that part of who he is.

“I didn’t realize I’d left,” Seokjin admits.

Hyosang doesn’t have to pull him into a hug, and Seokjin almost tells him not to, knowing the seawater will soak into Hyosang’s jacket, but Hyosang does it anyway. It’s a strong hug, firm and with a few rough meaningful slaps to the shoulder before Hyosang releases him with a smile.

“You’ll have to tell me about whatever you were up to sometime,” Hyosang says, pulling away. “But not tonight, I have to go and not see my fiancé until the alter tomorrow.”

“Deal,” Seokjin says, and smiles as Hyosang steps away with a wave.

It’s a little hard to think that he’d forgotten so much as he walks back to his room, feet squishing in his still soaked shoes. Seokjin could have taken them off, but doesn’t really see the point. They’re already ruined, and while he knows how much they were, that they are supposed to _mean_ something, he’s too tired to really care about it right now. If anything, this whole ‘vacation’ has his wardrobe taking a massive beating, two pairs of pants and now most of a suit destroyed.

Yet at the same time, just as Seokjin is losing articles of clothing, he’s suddenly gaining something, knowing that he can let go of the frustration over the ocean waters instead of trying to neutralize it with ‘calming breaths’. Seokjin is reminded of the memories he made with this group of friends he hasn’t seen in a long time, of the things that _made_ them friends, of the person he once was eight years ago.

The person he isn’t now, or at least not entirely. A lot has changed, but Seokjin didn’t realize how much of that had been himself.

When Seokjin walks back into his room, toeing off his shoes and pulling off his soaked socks, it’s quiet. There is no sound of the cuatro floating from the room beside his, but looking out at the deck he can see the lights from Yoongi’s room are on. The salt from the ocean still sticks against his skin as Seokjin pulls his soaked clothes off, dropping them into the bathroom in one of the bags provided for ‘laundry services.’ If the laundry can manage to save them, Seokjin will be impressed.

A shower would probably be the best, but looking towards the deck, Seokjin instead grabs and changes into the worn clothes from the day before.

It takes a few moments after Seokjin knocks on the dividing door before it opens.

“It’s unlocked,” Yoongi answers, stepping back immediately from the door and walking back into his room, not looking at Seokjin.

“I’m being polite,” Seokjin says. “I consider barging into people’s rooms unannounced to be rude.”

“I always kind of found it exciting and spontaneous,” Yoongi shrugs, walking back to the dressing table which is strewn with clothing and a few other nicknacks. He’s still wearing the slacks and shirt from dinner, his jacket draped over one of the chairs. “Did you need something?” Yoongi asks, glancing over at him. He blinks. “Weren’t you wearing that yesterday?” He frowns. “And you’re wet. What happened to your suit?”

“It went in the ocean,” Seokjin says, figuring that’s the easiest way to explain what happened. It is, more or less, true.

“It -“ Yoongi stops and just _looks_ at him for a moment before shaking his head and walking out to the deck. “Okay.” Pausing on the deck by one of the chairs, he reaches out to rest his fingers on the neck of his cuatro, propped on the cushions. “Did you need something?”

The way he’s talking is casual, like nothing happened, but he’s far away, distancing himself physically and Seokjin remembers. It had been the first real thing he learned to read from Yoongi all those years ago years ago. Seokjin would know when something was off because Yoongi would move away, pulling away from others if something got under his skin or bothered him, made him feel threatened. He’d keep a distance because he didn’t want to get hurt, or felt like he couldn’t protect himself.

Seokjin remembers because when Yoongi felt safe and happy, he’d be close, and would drift closer, almost a shadow right at his side, whispering commentary and teasing at Seokjin’s shoulder. Seokjin remembers that he was safe for Yoongi, that while Yoongi would keep his distance with so many others, Seokjin would always find Yoongi beside him, close enough to know he was there because he’d grown so familiar with the kind of shampoo Yoongi used that would waft from him when he was so near. It makes him feel cold now, watching as Yoongi stays away, keeping his distance, like Seokjin is no longer safe for him.

It’s wrong. This is wrong. That’s not how it’s supposed to be, how it should be. Eight years ago, this isn’t where Seokjin wanted them to be.

“I just wanted to check in,” Seokjin says, and Yoongi doesn’t move when Seokjin joins him on the deck. “Can I sit?”

“That’s what chairs are for,” Yoongi says, and gestures for Seokjin to sit as he takes the other chair, nestling the cuatro into his lap easily. For a while Seokjin just sits, staring at his hands and trying to figure out what he wants to say, turning over the unease and guilt in his chest since he walked out of the ocean, trying to put them into words.

“Thank you,” Seokjin says finally, figuring that’s the best way to start. He doesn’t say what for, and he’s not entire sure what he’s thanking Yoongi for exactly, but it at least is a start.

Yoongi just shrugs, looking out over the deck towards the ocean. “Did you get the wine out?”

“No,” Seokjin admits. “I’m pretty sure the shirt is ruined. Wine and ocean water probably don’t mix.”

“Dunno, maybe the salt water would actually help,” Yoongi shrugs. “Wash and rinse at the same time.” The corner of his mouth twitches, as if letting himself laugh at his own poor humor, and Seokjin can’t help but stare somewhat exasperatedly. He’d forgotten how poor Yoongi’s humor was sometimes.

“About earlier -“

“You didn’t miss anything,” Yoongi says, talking over him, not meeting his eyes. “Just Seulgi’s dad standing up and crying about his daughter before his wife made him stop. It wasn’t that exciting and -“

“I was talking,” Seoking interrupts, and Yoongi finally looks at him.

“I know,” he says, completely unapologetic. “Was it important?”

“I was going to apologize, but you interrupted me,” Seokjin says, and the corner of Yoongi’s mouth twitches again.

“What were you going to apologize for?” Yoongi asks, as if whatever it was isn’t important, like he doesn’t _actually_ care about it. “Yelling at me in the bathroom? Or something else?” Yoongi sighs as Seokjin watches him, turning to pull something from his pocket. It’s Seokjin’s cell phone. “You forgot this in the bathroom, along with your suit jacket. One of the staff brought it by because you still label all your clothes.” Yoongi looks ready to poke fun at that, but instead just lets out a long breath and says, “Namjoon called, by the way. And Donghyuk’s flight finally left New York.”

Frowning, Seokjin takes back his cell phone, swiping over the lockscreen. “How did you know my password?” he asks, looking up from the screen.

Yoongi shrugs, settling back in his chair. “It’s the same code you used to have in college,” he explains, and the faint hint of a smile passes over his mouth, eyes softening briefly. “Some things don’t change, apparently.”

“I feel like I have to change it now,” Seokjin says, weighing the phone in his hands. His fingers itch to open the messages, to see what Yoongi is talking about, to check in and push back into that world that he’d promised Namjoon he’d take a break from. 

“That’s up to you,” Yoongi says and leans his head back against the chair, eyes closing. “I wouldn’t worry though, I doubt the others remember.”

“I can’t believe _you_ remembered,” Seokjin half laughs, turning off the screen for his phone and letting it sit beside him on the chair.

“Muscle memory,” Yoongi says and Seokjin scoffs. The corner of Yoongi’s mouth tugs a bit more. “I don’t consider it a bad thing though, considering I was here to tell Namjoon you weren’t dead.” Yoongi settles back, hands resting against the strings of the cuatro, silently ghosting over them in an unheard melody. “He worries about you, you know?”

“I can take care of myself,” Seokjin says easily, watching Yoongi’s fingers bend and curve over the neck of the instrument with such care. “I’ve been doing it for years.”

“It’s not a crime to lean on people, you know?”

“I never said it was,” Seokjin says, finally looking up at Yoongi’s face in surprise. Yoongi’s frowning softly, looking out over the edge of the deck, as if piecing together all the words he’s trying to string together in a way he likes. “I let-“

“I’m talking about you,” Yoongi cuts him off. “You kind of suck at letting people help you.”

“That’s because-“

“Everyone needs help sometimes, even you,” Yoongi interrupts. “Even if you don’t want to admit it. Or ask for it. Like today.”

Seokjin almost says _’you didn’t have to try to help me tonight’_ as Yoongi continues to look out over the balcony railing and not at him. He almost does, but instead holds in the words, letting the distant rolls of the ocean stay within as he looks at Yoongi beside him and the ghosts of what he’d said earlier twist in his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Yoongi asks again, and doesn’t look at him. “For yelling at me in the bathroom? I’m not mad at you about that.”

Seokjin blinks, that twist in his chest getting worse as Yoongi’s words sink in. “What are you mad at me for then?”

For just a fraction of a moment, Yoongi glances at him, barely holding eye contact before he wets his lips and swallows. “What’s the whole point of this?”

“The point?” Seokjin asks, wishing for just a clear answer. Despite how he knows that getting a clear and simple answer from Yoongi is never easy, usually getting a literal answer or something so complex it almost makes Seokjin’s head hurt. This is what has hurt for a long time though, watching as Yoongi spoke in riddles and, while Seokjin had taken _years_ to learn what they meant, when Yoongi and Namjoon talked, it’s like watching them in their own world.

Speaking a language Seokjin couldn’t keep up with or understand, layered words and meanings that only they seemed to understand and hold onto, taking Seokjin too long to participate. So Seokjin had stopped. After a while, he had simply stopped.

That might have been his first mistake, even if it’s impossible to think that nine years ago one withheld comment brought them here. Sitting beside each other but feeling oceans apart. “The point is I’m trying to stop – I don’t want to be mad. I don’t want this – whatever is wrong – to keep happening. I want us to be friends and –“

“We are friends,” Yoongi says and finally looks at Seokjin and doesn’t look away. “Don’t be an idiot. I mean what’s the point of everything you’re doing?”

Seokjin frowns, not following. “What?”

Yoongi’s fingers have stilled against the neck of his cuatro, his eyes boring into Seokjin, intense and sharp. “All you do is work, even to the point that when you’re with your friends, all you’re doing is work.” Seokjin’s chest tightens and his throat dries, thinking of Hoseok demanding his phone, of Hyosang’s nerves drawn too tight, of the shocked look on Seulgi’s face when Seokjin had accidentally yelled at her. “What’s the point of a job if you’re not happy, if you’re just stressed all the time about stuff you hardly care about? Things that don’t really mean anything to you?”

“I do care about it,” Seokjin says, watching as Yoongi’s words get sharper, clearer, stronger. Seokjin _does_ love his work, it’s just not always the kindest to him in return.

“Really?” Yoongi asks him, eyes flashing just a bit, still steady on him, swallowing him whole. The feeling in his chest gets worse. “Your work truly makes you happy?”

“Why does it matter?” Seokjin asks, confused at Yoongi’s persistence in this. It’s his work, and never in the last few years has Yoongi pushed so much about his job. Yes, it’s time consuming, but that’s not all it is to him. “I thought you didn’t care about my work.”

Silence answers him, and for a moment Seokjin wonders if Yoongi is going to answer him at all, or just move into another whole direction. Then he swallows, wets his lips, and never looks away from Seokjin with that same intense look that Seokjin feels like he can’t look into. It flickers, and for the briefest of moments- “You’re right, I don’t care about your work.”

It takes a moment, a moment just like before when Seokjin lets himself just sit and listen to what Yoongi had said before the words he’s just said sink in; what they really mean. Just like before with _’I’m not mad at you about that’_ it takes Seokjin a moment to realize what Yoongi is really telling him.

It’s so easy to skip past it, to ignore the layers within that make up Yoongi, wrapped up in Seokjin’s fast paced rapport and email chains and deadlines. Yoongi takes time and consideration and Seokjin forgot how much he needed to slow down to hear _’I care about you’ _just below the surface.__

In that moment, trapped in Yoongi’s gaze and with the words underneath slipping inbetween the cracks in Seokjin’s perception, the tension in his chest dissipates. It’s in that moment, when Seokjin doesn’t think about how it was, how long it’s been since he and Yoongi didn’t have this space between them, but realizes that in the breaths between it’s still there. The tension, the stress, the guilt and unease wash away, soothing as he _listens_ instead of just pays attention.

The underlying reality of all of this is that despite Seokjin feeling the need, the pressure, to give Yoongi an apology, Yoongi doesn’t want it. Yoongi isn’t waiting for him to apologize to him, not for whatever happened this evening, and he’s not going to tell Seokjin off for whatever it is he’s done wrong.

It doesn’t matter, and Seokjin knows if he presses it, Yoongi will just push him back, put back that space between them. That’s not what he cares about.

What he cares about is Seokjin.

It’s simple, so simple it’s frustrating, but meeting Yoongi’s gaze, Seokjin knows that’s the truth. It’s the same truth Seokjin used to know, just like the story of the _Mayfly_ , but lost it along the way all those years ago amid the schedules and the guest lists and client emails. 

That’s what matters; that’s what’s important. 

After all, they’re all just dead bodies waiting to happen, and that perspective, though hard to grip at first, puts everything into focus on what really matters. 

It helps Seokjin to remember what’s really important here and now, with Yoongi watching him. Some of the intensity has gone from his gaze, but he’s still watching Seokjin, fingers once more shifting over the fretboard of the cuatro, the soft flow of thoughts almost just visible in the dark browns in his eyes.

It’s been years, but finally Seokjin feels that old comfort, that old ease of being with Yoongi that he never wanted to lose. “Can you play me something?”

Yoongi blinks, twice, then swallows with a small frown. “What?”

“I keep hearing you play from the other side of the divide,” Seokjin explains, gesturing to the cuatro. “And it’s nice. I missed hearing your music over the last few years. I don’t know if I’ve really heard you play anything besides piano.”

A soft smile plays about the corner of Yoongi’s mouth, just hiding on the edges, waiting for Seokjin to coax it out to spread over Yoongi’s face brilliantly, making him radiate. “You could always ask if you wanted. I could give you a session, free of charge. Maybe help with all that stress.”

Seokjin doesn’t mean to reach over, to lay the tips of his fingers against the arm of Yoongi’s chair, just brushing against his arm, skin warm. “I’m asking now,” he says.

That smile pulls, just a little wider, as Yoongi glances down at the cuatro and then back to Seokjin, settling back into his chair. “One song, then I’m kicking you out.”

“One song,” Seokjin agrees. There’s more to talk about, more to say, more things that Seokjin knows he wants to say but doesn’t have the words for yet. There’s more talking that Seokjin needs to do, more that he wants, but not tonight. It’s not time, and even as the anticipation of it skitters under his skin, he closes his eyes and lets the soft melody he’s been hearing Yoongi play for the past few days wash over him like the calm waters of the ocean beyond them.  
  


★☆★

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, it's been a while. I apologize this hasn't been completed yet but truly do mean it when I say I've had shit to deal with. I'll finish as soon as I can <3

**Author's Note:**

> Don't you just love explanatory notes at the end of stories? I sure do!
> 
> Firstly, I want to once again thank the mods for keeping up with me and for being so wonderful to work with. Thank you again so much to R, F, A, and dongseng.
> 
> "Half a Bubble Off Plumb" is a phrase initially used in carpentry when explaining how level or straight something is. Usually, the level has a small liquid filled tube with a 'bubble' inside it that will, when level, rest between two center lines perfectly. This is known as 'plumb'. When the angle isn't level, the bubble with move to represent that in the tube, going outside of 'plumb'. The term indicates when half of the bubble is divided by one of the lines, meaning it isn't straight or is slightly off. In slang, this is used to indicate that something is just a bit off or wrong about something or someone; they are imbalanced. Often times it is used as a personal jibe to say there's something strange or a little weird about someone. Though modern slang has adapted it a step further to identify someone's sexuality, the title is used here to reference an imbalance, where something is not level or is uneven and unsteady.
> 
> The opening poem is from the poem ' _2Care_ ', which I found [here](http://hellopoetry.com/poem/720807/2care/) by author BML. 
> 
> The Career Forum is based off of an actual organization known as the Career Forum.Net which is a huge business company that helps network and organize prospective jobs for companies and employers in Japan. The organization holds conventions frequently across the United States, Japan, and other continents for interested workers to browse among the attending companies and interview. It's, essentially, a massive job fair and the company runs full time. Most of the process looks for bilingual employees, and asks for or requires Japanese fluency. The Career Forum here is along the same idea, though is perspectively younger and less established.
> 
> The National Philosopher's Association is based off of The National Philosophical Counseling Association and more can be found [here](http://npcassoc.org/).
> 
> The strike that renders Donghyuk stuck in Reykjavik was inspired by [this strike](http://icelandreview.com/news/2015/05/19/interruptions-flights-due-impending-strike) which made headlines due to the complications in airlines and connecting flights for hundreds of global travelers. Though this strike isn't exactly the same, it does draw from this event.


End file.
